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 15 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
Berberian: Direct-to-consumer hardware sales are primarily a US and UK phenomenon
“I mean, we're bullish on that because it's obviously better margin for us, but it's a U.S. Phenomenon primarily, and maybe a little bit in the U.K. In other markets, it's still very much brick and mortar, and so you have to take an omni-channel approach.”
Berberian: Arguing during board meetings signals CEO pre-meeting communication failure
“If you are arguing with your board in the middle of the board meeting, you need a mental, you know, some little light needs to go off saying you're doing something wrong.”
Berberian: 70% of VCs hedge in 'maybe' category without answering
“Seven out of 10 of them won't give you a response. They'll always go into the maybe category and hedge their bets.”
Berberian: Most venture capitalists lack a real hardware thesis and are dabbling
“They're not really strong thesis around, you know, hardware being transformed. And it's, you know, it's now this software enabled experience and the economics of manufacturing are significantly different than they were 20 years ago. There's very few VCs that a…”
Berberian: Constantly adding features drives execution teams crazy before shipping
“As I look at my leadership style, that intense focus on trying to add more and more stuff to the product can drive your team crazy, because they're just trying to get the basic Thing out the door.”
Berberian: Retail hardware deadlines force product focus better than software timelines
“When you launch software, you can kind of fudge your release date, because you're always updating it. When you sell into retail, they say, okay, we're going to launch you on You know, October, so you have to back everything up from that date, and having extern…”
Berberian: CEOs should never present surprising information during board meetings
“The way to keep a happy board is to never surprise them. Always get in front of them. When you go to the board meeting, there shouldn't be any information that's presented where they're going to look at and go, what the hell is this?”
Berberian: Sphero uses Voxer for asynchronous board communication between meetings
“Another thing is that I've been doing with this company is I've been using a tool called Voxer, and we're doing a bunch of asynchronous communications where we can leave like these walkie-talkie messages for each other. So that we can have an ongoing dialogue …”
Berberian: Broad 'shotgun' pitching to 20 VCs inevitably yields 20 rejections
“It's always better to use a rifle than a shotgun. Every time I've gone out and tried to meet with, you know, 20 investors, inevitably I will get 20 no's.”
Berberian: Traditional plastic toys will evolve into robotic entertainment experiences
“And I think you're going to see toys really transform from the plastic by the pound into some really amazing robotic entertainment experiences.”
Berberian: Sphero had only $1M in the bank ahead of CES 2011
“We only had about a million dollars in the bank.”
Berberian: Sphero expanded direct-to-consumer sales from 10% to 25%
“We started off maybe having 10%, you know, direct to consumer and that's, I'd consider sites like Amazon, More direct to consumer than a, you know, brick and mortar traditional retail. That's now shift to closer to 25% in the last couple of years, and last yea…”
Berberian: Sphero completed six VC rounds culminating in a $52M round
“We raised our money a million dollars, and we had to get somewhere to show that we were worthy of getting another tranche of money, and that was our series B, which was five million, and then we had to do something with that to get our next Five million. Then …”
Berberian: Contacted 20 VCs for Sphero without getting a face-to-face meeting
“I remember early on, like, it was our Series B or Series C. I couldn't even get a face-to-face meeting. We, I talked to 20 VCs. I have a spreadsheet. I could get a phone call, but I couldn't get a face-to-face meeting, and I remember Brad saying, says, you hav…”
Berberian: 2014 Disney Accelerator gave Sphero warp drive growth
“And then they ran a second program with Disney Accelerator in 2014. Going through that and the exposure we got into the Walt Disney Company has transformed the business. I mean, it, the accelerator doesn't, you know, put us, it gave us, you know, warp drive. T…”