The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 31 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Gillette failed to react competently to Dollar Shave Club's rise
“Gillette had not still to this day has not reacted in a competent way that put any pressure on Dollar Shave Club.”
Pakman: Jay-Z's Tidal is doomed to ultimate failure
“So, I think Tidal's notion of exclusive content was somewhat doomed from the beginning, and I think the numbers show the product has failed. The social receptivity was really negative. And I think it will it will ultimately completely fail.”
Pakman: Media Brands Cannot Rely on Exclusive Content in Age of Abundance
“I think media is in a, you know, a complete fundamental platform shift from an age of scarcity to an age of abundance, where you can't depend on exclusive content as a way for you to build your media brand. You have to build platforms on which other people cre…”
Independent Music Streaming Services Are Unviable Because Digital Music Is Commoditized
“I think, unfortunately, it's not a good time To be a independent provider of digital music, you know, to be a music service, because as I said, they're largely commoditized. Almost no one can make money in them. None of them are profitable. So the, you know, t…”
Pakman: Apple Music will reach only 30-50M paid subscribers in 2 years
“I think there'll be a sustainable long-term digital music streaming service, but I don't think they'll get much more than, you know, I'm thinking sort of 30 to fifty million paying subscribers over the next two years, so I think my prediction is that they'll f…”
Multiple Dollar Shave Club seed investors passed on the Series A
“A number of the firms Who were already seed investors either did not engage with the company around its series egg or took a look and passed. It wasn't terribly competitive around for me to win.”
Low margins and Amazon competition make giant e-commerce exits rare
“A lot of investors don't love e-commerce for a number of reasons. It's, it tends, it can be a low margin business. It tends to have low multiples. Amazon is ever present and can compete with you in many, many categories on price and convenience, so it's pretty…”
Over a dozen VCs declined to lead Dollar Shave Club's Series B
“Michael pitched, I don't know, probably at least a dozen firms in the series B where there was some investor interest, but no one who would catalyze around no one who would lead around.”
Dollar Shave Club was headed for an IPO before the Unilever buyout
“We were likely to become a public company really as a financing opportunity to add, you know, many more hundreds of millions of dollars to the company so we could expand internationally into more products and into more territories.”
Dollar Shave Club sold to Unilever to accelerate global scaling
“Michael and the management team were ultimately convinced that Hey, we can get so much bigger, so much more quickly by working with these guys, then continuing on the independent path, and we like them. So that was really what led to the decision to undertake …”
Legacy CPG brands lack direct-to-consumer capabilities
“Almost all of these hundred-year-old companies do not have any capability to sell direct, and when they try, they aren't very successful. Look at Gillette and their incredibly originally named Gillette Shave Club. You know, not very successful.”
Incumbent car companies lack competence in software and data
“Autonomous vehicles need Really good software and lots of data. Two things that income and car companies aren't very good at.”
Automobiles will increasingly be sold direct-to-consumer, following Tesla's model
“We think cars will be sold direct to consumer the way Tesla is doing it.”
Pakman: Venture capital is too efficient at funding obvious winners
“Right now venture capital is super competitive, and it's a very efficient market at funding things that are working right now. So if you're a VC and your goal is to look for things that are exploding at this moment, that's a very competitive space, and it's go…”
Pakman: Venrock backed Dollar Shave Club when VCs doubted it could scale
“You know, I did that with Dollar Shave Club, where very few people believed that that company could become as large as they have and could disrupt, you know, a traditional legacy shaving market, men's grooming market.”
Venture Capital Will Be Disrupted and Practiced Differently in Five Years
“Venture will be disrupted. It's being disrupted today. It's being practiced actually today differently than it was 15 or 20 years ago, and it'll probably be practiced five or seven years from now differently than it is today. So I do believe that venture is no…”
Pakman: Direct-to-Consumer Is the Only Retail Model That Will Work
“I'm confident that the only model that will really work in the future, or the model that will work best in the future, are brands that have direct relationship with customers.”
Churn rate is the most critical metric for subscription businesses
“The key metric in all SaaS or subscription businesses is churn rate. The lower the churn rate, the easier it is for the company to grow.”
Massive subscription businesses require broad market demand over niches
“The only way to build really big subscription businesses, Netflix or internet internet access companies is to have very large market demand. So you have to sell into very large markets as opposed to niches.”
Dollar Shave Club showed extraordinarily low early cohort churn
“I flew to LA quickly and sat down with Michael and his team and started to go through the numbers. And I was very specifically focused on, let me see churn. Let me look, let me see what the early cohort churns are. And they were extraordinarily low.”
Dollar Shave Club generated $7M in revenue in its first year
“You know, they did about seven million in revenue in their first year, and they were on track to do twenty million in their second year.”
Dollar Shave Club revenue tripled from $20M to $60M in year three
“So we went from twenty million in year two to sixty million in revenue in year three.”
Venrock screens consumer startups against Amazon Basics commoditization risk
“One of the areas of that investment thesis is will Amazon Amazon you by effectively commoditizing the category by launching an Amazon basics or, you know, an Amazon branded commodity version.”
Unilever's acquisition model allows acquired companies to operate independently
“In fact, it's really brilliant at what they do. They buy a company and they say, congratulations, you just acquired Unilever. What they mean by that is, you know, you will continue to remain an independent company and operating, but you now have all of the res…”
Legacy CPG firms will acquire DTC startups to gain e-commerce expertise
“So I think there is pressure now on all of the large consumer products companies to become DTC, and you can either buy or build, or both. And so, yes, I think we will see more transactions as a way to import knowledge and get, get ahead in this important categ…”
Dollar Shave Club achieves higher margins by selling proprietary products
“They have High margins compared to e-commerce companies that sell someone else's product, because they sell their own products.”
Automotive startup Pearl's 70-person team includes 53 former Apple employees
“I think there are 53 people from Apple, 70 total people now that, that built and managed and delivered iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch and iPods”
Pakman: Former CEOs entering VC must accept they no longer make decisions
“The hardest part, though, is appreciating that you're not the one in charge anymore, and that the CEOs that you're backing are the ones who are in charge, and you can give them advice, but ultimately they have to make all of the final decisions, and that's jus…”
Pakman: Venrock Prefers Months of Hands-On Relationship Building Before Investing
“I don't think we need to know someone for a year before making an investment, and that would be a little bit unlikely, although it happens from time to time. But, you know, the ideal scenario is to have a few months of working relationship, either, you know, m…”