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 22 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
Siroker: Rewind raised Series A at $350M valuation with $700K ARR
“We raised it a three hundred fifty million dollar valuation with 700 K and ARR.”
Siroker: Rewind's 20-person team ships faster than Optimizely's 400
“We're a team of 20 at Rewind, and we're more productive. We ship faster than we ever did when I had a team of 400 at my last company.”
Siroker: Rewind's public pitch deck got over 1,000 investment offers
“We got well over you know, we got millions of views over a thousand offers to invest, many from really great investors, and I spent the next week in meetings with folks.”
Siroker: Public fundraising reveals true market price and best matches
“And I think that's really the value of being more public in your fundraise, It helps you cast a wider net, which then you ultimately find the perfect match, the perfect marriage, and you end up, I think really getting a sense for your market prices. That's the…”
Siroker: Fear of copycats from public fundraising is overblown
“You know, it's true that since we did raise in public and we were successful, we've had some imitators and some copycats, but none of them really have affected us. You know, it was a little bit of like, oh, should I have Been so public about our success when I…”
Siroker: Rewind received 20 funding offers at $1B valuation or higher
“We had 20 offers at a billion dollars or more but 20 out of a thousand is pretty small.”
Siroker: Pre-PMF founders waste time coding instead of talking to users
“They can convince themselves that they're actually meaningfully moving toward product market fit by just sitting in the room and coding all day. Most of the time, that time is wasted. You know, it's not getting you any closer to the insights you need to buildi…”
Siroker: Rewind holds six years of runway
“Yeah, and that's why we have six years of runway, and I hope to increase that, not decrease that over time, is I've learned that mistake, and, you know, it's great to raise money when you can.”
Siroker: Early Google promoted engineers for technical sophistication over customer solutions
“When I was there early on, a lot of people valued. You got promoted by the sophistication of your technology, not by the problem it actually solves for a customer.”
Siroker: NEA has 15-year fund lifecycles and buys at IPO
“NEA is known to have 15 year fund life cycles as opposed to the traditional 10. Very often they're buyers at the IPO. They're not sellers.”
Siroker: Direct questions rarely reveal the truth about prospective investors
“Investors are very good at selling. So you should be careful. There's very few questions you can ask an investor that you're going to get to the core truth. Compared to talking to their references and certainly talking to back channel references are very, very…”
Siroker: Cold outreach to portfolio CEOs yields honest back-channel investor references
“I think founders will be really honest with other founders. So don't be afraid to, you know, you're thinking about taking a term sheet from an investor. Look at, you know, all the other people they're on the board with and just reach out to the CEOs of those c…”
Siroker: Asking why a partnership failed uncovers hidden reference truths
“And usually when you ask somebody their first instinct, and you ask them in this hypothetical, you get to some truth that you might not otherwise get when you ask about strengths and weaknesses.”
Siroker: Rewind has six years of runway to justify its valuation
“And because the good news is we have six years of runway. We've got plenty of time to live up to the big valuation.”
Siroker: Most Founder Effort Is Wasted; Success Relies on Getting 2-3 Things Right
“If I look back at the things that I did at Optimizely, my last company, the vast majority of my time and effort was wasted. What really mattered was like getting two or three things right. That ultimately led to our success.”
Siroker: Investors Want Founders to Follow Instincts, Not Blindly Obey Advice
“They actually wouldn't want me to just blindly follow their point of view. They want to be heard. They want to know that their point of view matters, that I'm hearing it, but more than anything, they want to make sure that I'm following my gut. I'm making the …”
Siroker: Second-time founders know winning earns team loyalty better than likability
“First-time founders think that the best way to get their team to follow them is to be liked, but really second-time founders recognize that the best way to get their team to follow them is to win, so that's more important than being liked in the moment, and th…”
Siroker: Bootstrapped founders succeed because they must talk directly to users
“Again, a good reason why bootstrap founders probably are successful is they're not surrounded by these people. You know, you end up just, you're forced to talk to users because you probably haven't hired that customer support person, and you hear the pain from…”
Siroker: Technical founders mistakenly prioritize tech sophistication over problem-solving
“So many technical founders, especially people who've worked at big companies, end up making the mistake of thinking that the value that they're creating is in the sophistication of their technology, not the problem it's solving.”
Siroker: Writing launch demo scripts before building forces founders to de-scope
“If you're forced to write that demo script before you start building, it makes you think about the use cases, the demos or that, that, that would demo nicely. And I think that clarifies, that focuses you back to the main thing. It focuses you on what actually …”
Siroker: Founders get better buy-in by sharing early, unpolished ideas
“Actually soliciting that input early in the process is way better than sort of coming down from Mount Sinai with these golden tablets of like, this is what we're going to do. Because both your own psychology is going to be a hindrance. And the people that just…”