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 45 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
Schneider: Customer success departments are make-believe organizations that shouldn't exist
“So we got rid of customer success because quite honestly, it was a, just a make believe organization that didn't need to exist.”
Schneider: 'Seagull VCs' distract management without providing real assistance
“My terminology from experience is there are VCs that are seagulls, And here's my definition. They fly into a room, or fly into a meeting, fly into a location, they basically take a shit, and they fly away. They talk a lot, they give work to do for other people…”
Schneider: BMC and HP Software were 'dead already' during ServiceNow's 2011 rise
“The two companies we were competing with were BMC and HP Software. Two companies that quite honestly were dead already in my book. All they were trying to do is take money out of the revenue stream and drop to the bottom line. They weren't focused on the custo…”
Schneider: Gartner claimed ITSM market was capped at $1B during ServiceNow's IPO
“During the IPO process, we had Gartner Show up at a lot of the investor pitches and say, the size of the ITSM market is gonna be capped out at a billion dollars. So, we don't see the growth potential for ServiceNow.”
Schneider: Enterprise software leaders should ignore low-end competitors and avoid moving down-market
“And what I realized is there's 10 competitors down market. Let them go beat the crap out of each other down there. They'll drive all the investor dollars into the toilet. And we'll just sit here and focus on what we do really, really well and own the market th…”
Schneider: Companies buy software to make money, save money, or avoid scandal
“People buy product for three reasons. They either buy it because it's gonna help them make money, they buy product because it's gonna save them money, or it's gonna keep them off the front page of a newspaper, which is usually what security products are being …”
David Schneider: Delayed 'perfect' decisions are wrong decisions because issues change
“I think people try to make a perfect decision. By the time you make a perfect decision, it's actually going to be the wrong decision, because the issue's already changed.”
Schneider: ServiceNow doubled street pricing and doubled revenue in his first quarter
“We basically doubled street price in that first quarter which helped us double the revenue for that first quarter.”
Schneider: ServiceNow funded quarterly bonus pools based entirely on net new ACV
“In fact, up until recently, they had a bonus profile that was every quarter we would fund a bonus pool based on the company's achievement of net new ACV, which was new business minus any churn.”
Schneider: ServiceNow required new internal products to hit $100M in three years
“And so we actually launched four products at the same time in 2015, or 2016, I thought we were going to kill two of them, because for me to be viable, it had to be a hundred million in three years.”
Schneider: VCs must be founder-helpful, coaching founders with hard truths
“There is a difference, by the way, between founder friendly and founder helpful. And I think I have to walk the line between what I call founder friendly. I'm in your camp, but I'm gonna also tell you the truth. And I'm gonna get you ready for what's coming. A…”
Schneider: Many stagnant startups today are worth more as cash than companies
“I would honestly say they're probably worth more as cash than they are as independent companies, and some of them have made the choice to refund the cash back to the investors, sell off the assets.”
Schneider: Small allocation sizes prevent VCs from taking board seats
“If my position's too small, it's hard for me to dedicate the time, and so I have to try to tell these founders, hey, you know, this is going to be awkward. I know you want us, you want me on the board, but I can't use one of my spots to”
Schneider: Founders should select board members with operational experience over board volume
“I do think it's up to the management team to drive the clarity of thinking, and avoid when you're interviewing potential board members, look for relevant experience. Not the fact that they've been on eight other SaaS boards, but have they ever done anything th…”
Schneider: Data Domain reached $2B in revenue two years post-acquisition
“That company inside of EMC, we drove it to a billion that first year, and two billion dollars in the second.”
Schneider: Data storage buyers prioritize fast data recovery over backup
“It's not about the backup guys. It's about the recovery. It's about how fast can I recover this data so I can do my job and not get in trouble if something is corrupt.”
Schneider: CROs must forecast revenue 90 to 180 days out within 3%
“And so my job always was, be able to call the number, 90 to 180 days in advance, plus or minus three percent.”
Schneider: Most founders cannot articulate their core value proposition until prompted
“No. I think not until we start asking. Now the best founders, the ones that I really get excited to work with, are the ones that have clarity of thinking about that process.”
Schneider: Capturing legacy enterprise budgets is easier than creating new spend categories
“The secret for me was it was easier for me to unlock dollars from existing known spend areas than it was for me to create a new spend category. And create new budgets that didn't exist before.”
Schneider: Hire salespeople with a chip on their shoulder to prove something
“I look for people with a chip on their shoulder. I look for people that have something to prove, where the best days are in front of them.”
Schneider: ServiceNow's $1B HR product line originated from a sales engineer's idea
“That's probably a billion dollar product now, inside of ServiceNow, because we just listen to customers.”
Schneider: Key Coatue investment thesis targets repeat founders fixing past problems
“I love repeat founders on solving a similar problem, just with a better approach. You'll find that as a theme of mine when I make investments.”
Schneider hired 150 ServiceNow sales reps in 90 days to hit $100M
“I hired a 150 people in less than 90 days. And we did the hundred million dollars.”
Schneider: Real diligence truths are uncovered on second or third follow-up questions
“I think it's that art of the question, and not being satisfied with just the first answer, but digging deeper, because the truth is usually the second or third question you ask will get you closer to the truth.”
David Schneider: ServiceNow achieved a 98% plus renewal rate
“We were at 98% plus renewal rate, so I didn't have a churn problem.”
Schneider discounts startups relying on revenue from young tech companies
“If you're a business selling to other young technology companies, and that's your source of revenue, I'm gonna discount some of your future opportunity just from day one.”
ServiceNow saw 20-40% ACV expansion six months post-implementation
“So six months after the go-live of the system, we used to see 20 to 40% increase in ACV size.”
Schneider: A company can reach a $1B valuation with a single product
“Billion dollar company, I think you could do with a single product.”
David Schneider admits Coatue overpaid for venture deals in 2021
“In 21, I definitely feel like sometimes that, That time and place, we probably paid too high a price.”
David Schneider passed on early rounds over valuation before joining Series D
“Because I was worried about that, I missed a couple at earlier stages where I thought they were too expensive, and I came back, I looked at them in the A, I looked at them at the B, maybe even looked at them at the C, thought they were expensive every way, and…”
Schneider: Coatue usually requires a $75M minimum check for growth board seats
“So I'm typically in a growth deal trying, if I'm gonna take a board seat, it's usually a seventy-five million dollar check. I'll break the rule and go to 50 sometimes, but mostly it's 75 minimum, with the goal of doing more over time before it goes public.”
Schneider: Coatue underwrites growth investments for a 5x to 10x return
“Yeah, we're usually in growth trying to underwrite Can it be, you know, five to 10 X kind of outcome?”
Coatue Prefers Continuous Follow-On Investments Over One-and-Done Round Participation
“It's continuous. It doesn't always mean we participate every round, right? So sometimes things get too expensive, and we'll make a choice that Our risk adjusted rate of return for that deal isn't something we want to pursue at the same level as we would have b…”
Schneider: VCs uncover hidden startup flaws within three to six months
“Usually three to six months, you undercover all the warts that you didn't see, that they hid from you on the, in the diligence process.”
Schneider tests passed-on founders by offering continued help
“I tell people that, you know, hey, even if I don't make the investment, call me sometime. Like, and that's a test. I wanna know if they're thinking about me as a resource.”
Coatue walked away from a multi-billion dollar 2021 deal over price
“There was a deal that I got really excited about that when it came down to valuation, we were we did not hit the number that the company wanted, and I'm sure glad I missed it. So that was one that I probably dodged a bullet, because it was the height of 21, an…”
Schneider limited ServiceNow management reviews to three green and three red items
“When I led the review of any portion of ServiceNow or Data Domain, I started with the three things that were working, that were really green, and the three things that were red. If somebody wanted to help me on something in the red, be my guest. But if you wan…”
Schneider: Address critical issues in person or by phone, not email
“Go first person in conversation. Don't send email, talk to people, pick up the phone, go meet them. If it means flying across the world to go have that conversation, Better do it that way than having an email.”
Schneider: ServiceNow enterprise deals reach up to $50 million annually
“We're talking 10, 25, fifty million dollars a year, sometimes for these transformational efforts.”
Schneider: Data Domain had $550M revenue and 75-80% margins at acquisition
“Yeah, but imagine buying a company at the time, five hundred and fifty million in revenue, 75, 80% margins for two billion dollars.”
Schneider: Data Domain spent its first year selling a paid beta
“The first year we didn't have the right product. We had an initial product that I almost would refer to as a paid for beta.”
ServiceNow Express priced at $10K-$15K vs $50K enterprise entry price
“We were selling it for 10 to 15,000 dollars versus 50,000 dollars at the entry price.”
ServiceNow had hundreds of customers using product off-label by 2015
“Turns out that by 2015, we had hundreds of customers using us in new ways.”
David Schneider helped scale Data Domain from $0 to $1B revenue
“I spent almost nine years at a company called Data Domain, where I joined at zero dollars in revenue, and by the time I left, we'd gone through an IPO, took it to about a billion dollars, and then we got acquired by EMC in a hostile acquisition in 2009.”
David Schneider helped grow ServiceNow from $80M to $5B in revenue
“I spent 10 years at ServiceNow joining Frank Slootman again, who I had the privilege of working with at Data Domain. Into that company, which was about eighty million or so in size when I joined, and when I left it was five billion in revenue”