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
Mark Leslie: Founders solving unexperienced problems face lower success rates
“I think that the probability of success is much lower when you're trying to solve a problem that you've never personally experienced.”
Mark Leslie: You cannot teach someone to become an entrepreneur
“You can teach an entrepreneur How to go start and build a company, but you can't teach someone to be an entrepreneur who's not an entrepreneur.”
Mark Leslie: Leaders cannot change people's behavior because character is immutable
“I think character, my personal opinion, is as immutable. I don't believe that you can change behavior of people.”
Mark Leslie: Founders cannot subcontract early-stage startup sales
“At this point in time, there is nobody better equipped in a startup company to talk about the beauty and the benefits of the product, and the vision of the future that we're painting. There's nobody better equipped to do that than the founders who started the …”
Mark Leslie: Engineering projects cannot be on time, fully featured, and high-quality
“So my experience with engineering projects is that they can either be on time, they can be fully featured, or they can be high quality. I've never seen it all come together on the same day.”
Mark Leslie: Company culture is defined by crisis decisions, not published values
“Culture in a company has nothing to do with the values that are published. Culture in a company has to do with what happens in a company when things get bad and people have to make decisions on how do they react.”
Mark Leslie: Set sales quotas so 75% of reps hit 100%
“It's my belief that you want to have a company where 75% of the people get to a hundred percent. Then you have a reputation as this is a company where people make money.”
Mark Leslie: Technical founders struggle with asking for customer orders
“So one of the things that technical founders, you know, they're pretty good usually at the vision thing. They're not so good at asking for the order, right?”
Mark Leslie: Organizational trust operates like a bank account with no loans
“I think of trust, I think of it as a bank of trust. So in a bank of trust, you can make a deposit, meaning you can express trust and give people that sense. In times of need, when things are bad and you need people to stand by you can make a withdrawal from th…”
Mark Leslie: Dysfunctional sales behavior stems from flawed comp plans, not salespeople
“And the reason that salespeople don't behave right relative to their compensation plan, it's not the salesman, it's the compensation plan.”
Mark Leslie: Enterprise sales compensation plans should fit on a 3x5 card
“I think a compensation plan should be on a three by five card. This is what your base is. This is how much you're getting. These are the, you know, kind of notches as you go up the thing. And here's what we're paying you for.”
Mark Leslie: Early-stage startups need adaptable sales reps over process-driven hires
“But when you're just starting out, You want delta force. You want resourceful people who have minimal resources, and can react in a way, and can pull other people in the company, and can do amazing things that you can't, that you don't, you know, a big sales f…”