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 12 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
Gotthilf: Statistically significant failed experiments reveal high-leverage user moments
“If you run an experiment with statistical significance and it harmed your product, that means that you found a moment that really matters to users. And if you found a moment that really matters to users, you can manipulate it in multiple ways for positive and …”
Gotthilf: Facebook paid ads are a palliative, addictive growth tactic
“I think this one died a death from day one, but people don't realize it is paid marketing and especially like paid ads on Facebook. Unless you're really smart about how you're doing it and you know exactly like, you know, how you're going to scale this over ti…”
Gotthilf: Leaders at successful early-stage startups rarely know what they are doing
“One of the things I learned at Tumblr that I think a lot of people in early stage startups that succeed learn is that no one knows what they're doing at most points in time in life and in business.”
Gotthilf: Early-stage startups cannot easily run statistically significant tests
“It's really hard really early on in early stage startups, which is where I'm focusing my time now, because you don't have enough people for statistical significance.”
Gotthilf: Retention equals product-market fit and determines startup success
“Retention is everything. To me, retention is almost like product market fit. If you have retention, it means that people actually like the thing that you made, and it's actually useful for them. And that determines whether something's going to succeed or is no…”
Gotthilf: Product builders are often unable to tell their own product's story
“And often when you are the person who built the thing, you're not the person who can actually tell the story about why it's important.”
Gotthilf: Startups should pitch least important press targets first to iterate
“Make a list of all of this PR sources that you might want to be featured on and start with the least important ones when you're pitching. Because as you pitch, you need to learn what's working and what's not working.”
Gotthilf: Teasing short pitches builds rapport that increases journalist response rates
“If the person has responded to you once, now they have a relationship with you, even if it's a very marginal relationship, but before they had zero relationship to you. So it's very easy to ignore an email that you've never responded to before, but if you've r…”
Gotthilf: Coordinated press embargoes create a surround-sound effect for startups
“Embargo means that you tell journalists they can only publish something at a specific time on a specific date. And if you're able to do that, then you can get all of the new sources to publish something at the same time. And that's magical because you create a…”
Gotthilf: Leverage early TechCrunch press coverage to convince other journalists to publish
“If you're able to get something on TechCrunch, even if it wasn't your, you know, core consumer possibility, then very quickly tell other publications that are more, that feel more insecure than TechCrunch, like editors and journalists, and the link to TechCrun…”
Gotthilf: Dictating coverage to journalists is like micromanaging software engineers
“You can't have control and tell a journalist, I want you to write this or that, because I actually will rub them in an incredibly the wrong way, much like when you're working with an engineer and you tell them like, here's the solution I want you to build vers…”