Dan Park
CEO, Clutch. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executiveoperatorinvestorLinkedIn ↗clutch.ca ↗
Dan Park is the CEO of Clutch, an online used-car retail platform and marketplace. Before joining Clutch in 2019, he served as General Manager and Head of Uber Eats Canada and worked as a Venture Partner at Azure Capital Partners.
1shows
1appearances
23statements
3resolved
2supported
0contradicted
67%fully supported
Everything Dan Park said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Park: Asset-light auto marketplaces fail without owning the vehicle
“I think that's where I think a lot of these companies went wrong, because you can't control the full experience if you don't own the asset.”
Lead investor pulled Clutch's $95M Series C term sheet in January 2023
“We had the term sheet in hand pre-Halloween but signed it on the fourth, and then we were working towards, it was a ninety-five million dollar CREC round. We were working to try to close it, and then on January fifth the lead investor called us and said, look,…”
Park: Canada lacks a national retail brand for used cars
“In Canada, there's massive white space where there's no retail brand for used cars in this country.”
Park's rule: funding uncommitted by Halloween will miss year-end
“And I have this rule that if you don't raise capital by Halloween, it's pretty hard to close it by the end of the year”
Park: Only ownership percentage and exit valuation matter financially, not interim valuations
“Financially, the only thing that matters if you're an investor or an employee is, you know, how much you own and what the value is at exit, right? The interim valuations to a certain extent, you know, are milestones, but they don't really, it doesn't, you know…”
Clutch was six weeks away from running out of cash in 2023
“We were like six weeks away from cash out.”
Dan Park: Clutch briefly considered a lowball buyout offer in early 2023
“It created a bunch of uncertainty, and at that point, that was, like, the early part of twenty-twenty-three, we actually had to contemplate potentially selling the business. And so we did get a pretty lowball offer that we considered for a hot second.”
Dan Park: Clutch reached profitability in 2024
“And then we spent a lot of time on CAC efficiency, and so that helped us drive down costs, increased profit gross profit, and, you know, ultimately last year we got to profitability.”
Dan Park: Clutch doubled its business while reaching profitability
“We had to double, we effectively doubled the business in order to do that.”
Park: Clutch has hit $400M in annual revenue, doubling its prior peak
“No, we're now double our peak, so we're at four hundred million of revenue now.”
Park: Clutch turned off customer test drives without testing beforehand
“We just one day woke up and we're like, we have to turn it off. Like we just turned off test drives. Like we didn't test it. We just had, we just turned it off.”
Park: Clutch financed early inventory with 15-16% personally guaranteed loans
“I had a personal guarantee on a small loan, you know, Steve founder at a Personal guarantee on the loan. We wrote fully secured assets. We were thinking, I think we were paying like 15, 16% interest rate.”
Park: Clutch launched in Nova Scotia due to flexible used car regulations
“Steve literally flew to Halifax, had never been there before. It was the province, the only, there's the closest province that had the least amount of regulations that allowed us to sell used cars online.”
Park: Clutch car sales fell to zero after initial COVID-19 lockdowns
“Car sales went to zero the next month. We were scrambling, trying to figure out where we're going to do the business, and furloughed some employees, kind of really turned off anything that, that you know, wasn't helping sell cars.”
Park: Clutch Doubled Revenue in 2020 and Quadrupled It in 2021
“I think we doubled revenue that year, and then we raised a series A in late 2020. Investors got super excited about the category, and then we Quadrupled revenue the next year”
Park: Clutch Raised $75M Series B While Canada Drives Raised $100M
“We raised our series B, and that was like a seventy-five million dollar round. And then, you know, our competitor raised a hundred”
Park: Clutch Hired 250 People in Six Months After Series B
“After we raised that round I think we hired 250 people within six months.”
Clutch slashed headcount from a peak of 350 down to 87 employees
“Peak was three 50, and then 87 was our, kind of, low point.”
Zero leaders left Clutch for two years after massive 2023 layoffs
“From our 30 person leadership team of people managers and folks that are kind of in, in leadership positions, we didn't have anyone leave for two years.”
Dan Park: Clutch raised a $20M bridge round in summer 2023
“It was a twenty million dollar kind of bridge in the summer of 2023 and that, and it did what it was designed to do and get us to that milestone.”
Park: Clutch has raised $190M in capital to date
“You know, we'd raised, we've, at this point, we've raised one hundred ninety million because it's just, you need the equity to support the debt.”
Park: Clutch buys $1M in cars daily with $1B in outstanding offers
“I think we buy about a million dollars worth of cars daily. And, you know, at any given point, we have, you know, almost a billion dollars of offers outstanding in the business. And, you know, on a big weekend, you know, we'll flip five million of cars.”
Park: Clutch initially offered customers up to three at-home test drives
“What we were doing back then when I joined initially was we were basically providing vehicle car, it was called car enthusiasts or car concierges That if you wanted to test drive a car, we would bring you a car to test drive in your, like, in your neighborhood…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Dan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | CEO, Clutch | 1 | 23 | 67% 2/3 | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |