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 24 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Crespo: Incumbent FP&A software competitors lost their innovation velocity
“It's a world where a lot of companies out there are private equity owned. And so unfortunately not innovating at the pace at which they used to innovate. And most of our competitors are, you know, 20 years old plus, 15 years old plus, and have lost this speed …”
Crespo: Winning US enterprise software buyers is easier than in Europe
“A lot of people say it's harder than you think, where I think it's actually easier than you think. Because I said it's hard, yes, but it's easier than in Europe. People buy faster.”
Crespo: Pigment excluded Index Ventures to bring fresh perspectives
“All of the people at Index are my friends and they were already helping me. And in a way, I already knew the way they were thinking. And so for me, it was really important to bring new people, fresh ideas to the table.”
Crespo: Pigment will never prioritize term sheet terms over board quality
“I will never, you know, take the best term sheet based on, on whatever is written in there, because you just want the best people on your board.”
Crespo: Thin AI wrappers will die; deep workflow SaaS will win
“If you are building a layer, like a marketing tool that is just a layer, probably you can be killed by AI. If you're building something more fundamental that, you know, requires like, for instance, at Pigment, you know, we have this huge database, huge compute…”
Crespo: Pigment aims for $1T, but current platform won't get them there
“Nothing is preventing me from thinking how can I create a trillion dollar company out there? So what I am constantly thinking about, and this is where you need to think slow, is what is the second, the third, the fourth act of pigment? Because the platform we …”
Crespo: Pigment refuses to hire friends to ensure novel perspectives
“I'm not hiring my friends at Pigment. I'm hiring people that I don't know about that can bring things that I don't know.”
Crespo: Co-CEO Model Lets Companies Spend Double Time With Customers
“Well, when you are co-CEO, you actually have that superpower of being able to spend twice as much time with your customer, listening to them.”
Crespo Advises Founders to Spend Time Working in Venture Capital
“It's something I would advise to any founder, pretty much being a VC, because it created so many things.”
Crespo: Pigment recruited top talent directly from Paris Olympic Games CFO
“I lose a deal against another company, I always ask the name of the rep. I do something, you know, where I hear that there is, giving you a recent example, we had the Olympic Games in Paris last year, and I met the other day the CFO of the Olympic Games, the o…”
Crespo: Interview 20 top executives to learn to hire for unknown roles
“For me, the biggest advice is go human to human. Ask, when you're hiring your CRO, ask the 20 best CROs out there. Best CROs, again, in your category. What have they done so great? What makes them so different? That's really my number one advice to anyone.”
Crespo: European Employees Understand Equity Less Well Than US Peers
“I think we could be more appreciative of equity. Employees, a lot of employees do not understand equity as well as US employees.”
Crespo Shows Candidates a 'Hardships Deck' Before Hiring Them
“Now I do something that I didn't know in the past is putting in front of my candidates a deck to show them what's going to be hard at Pigment and make it very clear to them. Saying you're going to work harder than ever in your life here. These are the impossib…”
Crespo: Startups get individual board members, not VC fund brands
“And at your board, you get one person. You don't get a brand.”
Pigment targeted US enterprise buyers during its first year of sales
“First, we went very early to find customers in the US. First year of selling, pretty much we went to the US.”
Pigment closed a major US tech CEO deal in under 15 days
“Literally this deal was done in not even 15 days. He called me, it's two AM.”
Crespo: Startup board members hold more power than CEOs realize
“The power of the board is bigger than you think. If the board wants to fire you one day, probably they can.”
Crespo: U.S. Tech Dominance Driven by Superior Storytelling and Marketing
“The reality is that you can see the power of many U.S. Companies out there is a power of marketing, how much they have understood the importance of marketing and storytelling, and that's what I'm learned, like, that's what I've learned at INDEX, the importance…”
Crespo: Revolut Has One of the World's Best Marketing Teams
“And the stories to the public are not necessarily coming from Nick, but again, he has one of the best marketing team in the world, full stop.”
Crespo: Her husband knows nothing about Pigment as they never discuss work
“I'm going to tell you something, maybe you won't believe me, but it's true, he doesn't know anything about Pigment. We never talk about work together.”
Crespo: Pigment is being built to scale over 30 years
“I'm here to build a big company, a massive business. I want to build a company that scales for the next 30 years, and I want the best people around the table.”