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 13 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
TechCrunch funding announcements have almost zero impact on startup success
“It's fun to get the tech crunch article, but in a lot of ways it doesn't really matter. It's like cool to show your friends at home, but it almost has no impact on your business.”
Startup CEOs spend 95% of their time on administrative tasks
“When you're running a company, you basically spend about five percent of your time actually focusing on the things that you would deem important, and about 95% of the time working on things like, Fundraising and HR and hiring and all the things that, you know,…”
Product-focused startup CEOs must still hire a head of product
“If you're a product-focused CEO, still hire a head of product.”
Founders must maintain full team transparency during hard times
“You definitely tell them you know, transparency is the key. I just, you know, and the reality is, is that, especially for these types of companies, you want people to know, it's like Headed into a storm. You want everyone to know what they're facing so they ca…”
Girls Guide To was the first website to integrate Facebook Connect
“It was it was actually the first Facebook connect website Pretty much ever.”
Trying to learn without advisors wastes years of founder time
“There's absolutely no reason to reinvent the wheel on a lot of this stuff, and, you know, everyone's smart, you know, in terms of their own ability to learn these things, but you're gonna waste a couple years trying to learn it, and so, you know, I would not b…”
Owning 100% of a startup without key talent yields nothing
“I've seen other people who end up having a hundred percent of a company, but you know, don't really surround themselves with bright people and a hundred percent of nothing isn't really worth the bus at all.”
Fundraising teaches founders more about their business than anything else
“You never learn more about your business than going out and try to raise money.”
Silicon Valley bias against LA startups is now a non-issue
“Fast forward to today, I think that's a non-issue with people like, you know, Mark Suster and Upfront Ventures and Snapchat in LA.”
Startups should invest early in hiring a dedicated CFO
“You know, I think that's a hire that people often put off, because they may know someone who kind of understands finance. You know, I would invest early on that side.”
Founders should test business ideas before quitting their day jobs
“I think in general, I think, you know, like anything, you just really don't know what sort of these businesses really are until you start doing them. So I think just sort of cutting the cord immediately is really, really tough.”
Shift built ad tech for Facebook apps before direct ads existed
“So what we were doing is we built ad technology to go inside Facebook applications So when you're playing games on Facebook, we were actually serving ads there because you couldn't programmatically serve ads directly on Facebook yet.”
Borow: Five years of law school deferments enabled my startup risks
“She ended up giving me five years of deferments which basically meant that I could do you know, take the entrepreneurial track but really kind of have a lot more appetite for risk than most people, because The reality was that I had law school waiting for me.”