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
McGurk: Startups should generally avoid strategic corporate investors in Series A and B
“Should we include a strategic in our A round? Should we include our strategic in a B round? Generally the answer is no. There has to be a very good reason. And it depends on what industry they're in and who that strategic is. Because It's just the fear of conf…”
McGurk: a16z advises startups against granting board seats to strategic investors
“All things that we advise our portfolio companies generally speaking against. Absolutely. And so there's a balance there. So it's not, those are not things that are automatically granted because they're asked for. And sometimes the right answer is, you know, y…”
McGurk: Premature exclusive deals with telecom giants like Verizon have killed startups
“I've seen companies die over it, literally. Yep. So doing a deal with Verizon and you can never do another, at a, too early of a stage. You know, not being able to then do a deal with, You know, AT&T or Sprint or anyone else.”
McGurk: Pre-product startups under a year old should avoid corporate development
“And, you know, the meme was out there that, as Sonal mentioned, that you know, don't engage with the corp dev. And we agree with that at certain points in a company's life. If you're less than a year old if you're really kind of pre-product that we generally a…”
McGurk: Corporate development teams hold a significant negotiation advantage over founders
“Keep in mind also that these are professional negotiators. So, you know, the a startup and they go through their life, they may raise money, you know, a handful of times if they're doing very well, maybe, maybe several times they will probably, and hopefully o…”
McGurk: Founders should only share competitor-safe information with corporate development teams
“You know, you should treat that as the type of information that you would tell anyone that you would tell an investor that you would, you know, use on a sales call that, you know, frankly, that you would tell a competitor. So you don't want to give out the ver…”
McGurk: Founders should build corporate relationships concurrently with 3 to 4 targets
“If you're talking to one, I mean, you should have a plan in place and not to put a time sink into it, but you should be thorough about it. No, not, it's not 10, but it's not one. So it's picking that, You know, to the top of the top, top group that you're most…”
McGurk: Acquirers routinely seek unlimited indemnification caps in acquisition term sheets
“So companies will always want you to indemnify them against all things, you know, everything that the, that they can think of and with unlimited caps on it.”
McGurk: Strategic corporate buyers do not acquire startups they have never met
“Strategics don't buy companies they've never met. So, you know, it's all about creating options for the company. So whether that's staying independent, that's one option. But you also have to, you know, as John O'Farrell said, you know, you have to know where …”
McGurk: High multiples and ongoing losses drive SaaS bubble concerns
“So I think there's two things that people look at and point to point, point to the bubble, and one is revenue multiples that a lot of these SaaS companies are trading at, and I think it's both current and future expected losses, so lack of profits of a lot of …”
McGurk: Castlight's trailing revenue did not justify its post-IPO valuation
“I think a great example of that is Castlight's recent IPO, where, you know, if you look at what the revenue was, you know, on the income statement on a trailing basis, or even on a forward projected basis, it was fairly modest, and certainly didn't justify the…”
McGurk: Continuous updates make SaaS products stickier than perpetual software
“You know, you really don't know. So you have to the stickiness of your customers really dictated by in part by the product really, because in a you have constant updates. If you're a Salesforce customer, if you're a any SAS model customer, you're constantly ge…”