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 169 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
Pujji: Generating $1M SaaS ARR is as hard as $1M services EBITDA
“Getting a million dollar SaaS ARR is probably as hard as getting a million dollars in EBITDA, let's say in a services business. And guess what? They value those streams are valued exactly the same. So like the market is very efficient in terms of how it treats…”
Pujji: OpenAI will crush thin horizontal wrapper startups
“I think one of the challenges people to be careful of when building on top of open AI is like, if your solution is too horizontal, they're eventually going to eat your lunch.”
Worthwhile startup advisors should personally invest $25,000 to $50,000
“Anyone who's worth being an advisor probably should have 25 to 50,000 dollars to put into your company.”
Pujji: Most nine-figure e-commerce tech businesses do not rely on Shopify
“The biggest thing that, you know, industry or market wise was, dude, there's a bunch of nine figure e-com tech businesses. None of which, like with the exception of Klaviyo and maybe Attentive have anything to do with Shopify.”
Pujji: Creative is the new targeting in modern Facebook ads
“The new Facebook, you know, at paradigm is targeting like creative is the new targeting. So for anyone listening, running Facebook campaigns, you don't need to target anymore. It's broad. You let Facebook's algorithm figure it out.”
Pujji: Vertical media will become the dominant internet format in 2023
“I think I predict if we're right about Kahani that sometime this year, it's going to become a must have thing that your e-com site has tons of vertical media integrated into it to have the right rich experience that a user demands. But I think it's going to ha…”
Pujji: Startups Building on OpenAI Risk Fast Commoditization
“I think a lot of these companies the risk getting commoditized because the real tech, the real deep tech is GPT threes. It's open AIs. And if you're building on top of that, everyone's going to have the same functionality at some point. And so like, I don't kn…”
Pujji: Entrepreneurship's true purpose is self-improvement, not wealth or changing the world
“Everybody tells you entrepreneurship is about freedom. They tell you it's about making money so much money that, you know, you want it to do with it, or they tell you it's about changing the world. And I think those are all lies. I mean, I think that the actua…”
Pujji: The biggest AI winners will dominate narrow vertical matrices
“I think the most successful companies is somewhat obvious or not obviously, but it will take one square of that matrix. Like I said, customer service for banking and go, that is a very specific solution. I'm going to have the best models. I'm going to teach, I…”
Pujji: Advisory boards distract founders from selling to customers
“Building an advisory board is one of the, I'd put it as one of the many distractions that entrepreneurs create to think that they're going to build a better business instead of just selling stuff to customers.”
Pujji: The Plunge could be a $10M business generating $2M annual profit
“Cause I think it, I still believe what I've said to you every time, which is, is this going to be a hundred million dollar business? I don't know, but do I think it could be a ten million dollar business that made one to two million dollars a year? A hundred p…”
Pujji: Internal company initiatives often yield higher returns than outside investments
“Inside of a company, oftentimes the returns on capital are way higher than even an investor ever gets. Like there's initiatives, hiring five salespeople can have a 500% return in a year if you do it well, right?”
Jesse Pujji: Every business problem can be solved with a weekly meeting
“I think every problem can get solved with a weekly meeting.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff requires weekly meetings if leaders miss 20% growth
“Everybody submits a plan, and typically that plan has to grow a minimum of 20%, because that's just, like, Mark Benioff's thing. We grow 20% every year. And if you're hitting the plan, you meet with him once a quarter. And if you're missing the plan, you meet …”
Jesse Pujji: Executives should leave operational Slack channels to force team synthesis
“I don't think it's good actually for me to be in these channels. Like, I think it's important that I'm not, actually, because when I'm in them, then it feels like, oh, Jesse's alongside. He knows what's going on, and even we had our first version of those meet…”
Pujji: Mid-career VCs mistakenly apply rigid expected-value frameworks to all founders
“The middle ones in my experience, you know, it's sort of the hammer and a nail thing, right? It's like, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So everything they look at us through the expected value of how big could this be? If I put a dollar in, w…”
Pujji: Claiming employees must have equity to act like owners is manipulative
“I don't think you have to own part of the company. And I think that's like a faux narrative oftentimes that founder, you know, founders will somewhat be manipulative around, oh, everyone's an owner here.”
Prioritize CEO information access even if it burdens team productivity
“As the leader, sometimes it is important that maybe the team's a little bit less productive for your benefit, because you're ultimately the only person who can see everything that's happening and you're ultimately making most of the decisions. Right. And so it…”
Founders should quit their jobs and commit two full years
“I would tell people, most people, if that's similar, like you go give yourself two years,
Quit everything, go all in and make it work. And I think that sets you up for more success around entrepreneurial ventures.”
Pujji: SVB's headwinds justified shorting the bank, not FDIC receivership
“Now, all of that is a good reason to short a bank and make money off the equity being worth less. None of that is a good reason for Silicon Valley Bank to now be in receivership.”
Pujji predicts SVB uninsured depositors won't see funds for 3-6 years
“People have told me three to six years, like, we're not going to see that money for three to six years.”
Pujji: Debating if an idea is 'big enough' stems from ego and fear
“It's the whole conversation of whether the idea is big enough or not too big or no, it's all ego oriented versus just waking up in the morning and going, what will make, you know, what will energize me today? What will be something I'm excited to do? And I thi…”
Pujji: Fear of Commoditization Is Driven by VCs, Not Founders
“The fear of commoditization of business is totally driven by venture. It's not driven by entrepreneurs because every business you can build a moat around over time and you can build some resilience.”
Pujji: Validating B2B startups is easier than B2C via direct pitching
“And so that's the one thing about B to B that I think is beautiful is you can just get on the phone and start pitching people. You see their reactions, you get their feedback. It's in some ways it's way easier than B to C.”
Pujji: Wait three days before following up on large sales deals
“When you're doing really big deals, you don't want to pretend like a person is into it when they're not into it. You really want to make sure they want it. And so they had a little rule where they were like, wait three days for your follow-up.”
Pujji: Macroeconomic recessions are not valid excuses for startup sales failures
“Recession is the economy goes down by three percent, sort of up by three percent. So we go from being a 20 trillion to being a 19.5 trillion or 20.5 trillion. Like, I just, I personally just don't believe in that effect. Like, you think it's an excuse? Yeah. W…”
Pujji: Advertisers spending under $500k monthly shouldn't hack Facebook targeting
“There's certain advanced strategies you can still hack, but I wouldn't worry about them if you're listening and you're spending less than 500,000 dollars a month on Facebook.”
Pujji: Ad platforms generate 20 to 30 cents in supporting services per ad dollar
“On average for every ad dollar of any platform, there's about 20 to 30 cents in services, support, software, tools to make use of that platform.”
Pujji: Fear Is the Most Effective Entrepreneur Motivator, But It's Unsustainable
“Fear is the most common. By the way, it's the most effective, so I'm not judging fear, right? ... Yeah, you put a gun to your head, you're gonna run faster than you've ever run, but the downsides of fear are that they leave a negative residue on you and others…”
Pujji: Tech Layoffs Are a Direct Result of Boom-Cycle Greed
“Layoffs are a function of greed, and there was a moment where people were just overbuilding a lot, and that's what leads to layoffs, and that's what leads to a lot of this stuff.”
Pujji: Education Outside Top 100 Universities Will Be Reimagined by 2033
“So in 10 years, I think universities and the entire EDU system, other than maybe the top hundred universities, is going to be pretty reimagined.”
Pujji: TikTok is the exact asset Microsoft has wanted for two decades
“Microsoft, on the other hand, this is the asset they've been waiting for like two decades.”
Pujji: Never missing flights means you spend too much time in airports
“I've missed 10% of my flights as a life rule. You're spending too much time in airports if you don't.”
Pujji: Standing meetings waste founder time and encourage pointless presentations
“I try to avoid standing meetings. And the reason is, is because what's important this week or for the next week or two is going to be very different than what's important in the following two weeks. And I like to change and shift my hour, like where I spend my…”
Pujji: OKRs fail for early-stage startups dealing with high uncertainty
“My experience, okay, ours are really good when a company understands itself really well. Most people listening, me, you guys, like, we don't know our business that way.”
Pujji: Major investment bank fees are worth paying on $100M+ sales
“Typically if you're selling it for under a hundred million, you'll find a boutique bank who knows your industry, but if you're selling for over a hundred million, you'll call up Morgan Stanley or one of the big, big kahunas, and they charge one or two percent,…”
Pujji: Sam Bankman-Fried will go to jail
“And it's a good strategy. It's also like incompetence versus, versus shadiness or fraud. And I think it's a good, it's just a good angle, but he is going to go to jail.”
Pujji: Red Ventures has never raised primary equity capital
“They raised money from Silver Lake, but again, just in terms of secondary, like they've never, as far as I know, they've never raised equity capital onto their balance sheet.”
Pujji: Growth Assistant delayed legal review until business validation
“And, you know, example, we were starting growth assistant and someone, you know, Adrian was like, well, we need to figure out if it's legal to do what we're doing. And I'm like, well, no, we're not going to spend any money on that. Let's go see if there's a bu…”
Pujji: TechCrunch 'McKinsey of Growth Marketing' Label Was Fabricated by Me
“If you Google amp push and McKinsey, there's an article by tech crunch, which describes amp push as the McKinsey of growth marketing. And I literally like before the call with the reporter, I was like, Many people are calling us the McKinsey of growth and mark…”
Pujji: Twitter Has More Senior B2B Tech Decision-Makers Than Other Platforms
“There's something, by the way, about all these senior level decision makers and B to B in tech on there on more than any other platform”
Pujji: Top founders act on conviction over conventional business rules
“People like him don't ask what's Correct or incorrect or what's right or wrong in the sense of running a business. They just do what they know and what they want. And I think there's something about entrepreneurs not worrying whether or not it's, is this the r…”
Pujji: Non-VC founders do not need proprietary or uncrowded business ideas
“The third one I would take issue with unless you're a Y Combinator venture funded. The third one you said, which is make sure that like few other people can do it. Right? Because, don't get me wrong, I think way more energy is spent on people being like, oh, i…”
Pujji: A 50% hiring success rate is good for early-stage startups
“Hiring, especially in an early stage company, is extremely hard. Like, I was just talking to the CEO of Growth Assistant, I was telling her, a bet, a fifty-fifty is a good rate, and then when it comes to executives, it's even harder.”
Pujji: Mark Zuckerberg explained Facebook's entire multi-stage expansion strategy in 2005
“And he just, for 45 minutes, I didn't say a word. He just told me the whole strategy, which they actually did the whole thing. We're going to go into high schools and pods, then workplaces. It's going to be your online identity. Like he had already figured it …”
Pujji: Startups are teams, not families, because families do not fire people
“If you're gonna tell people you're a family, you got to behave like family and family doesn't fire people. They find other things for them to do. And there are companies, by the way, that operate like that. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're going …”
Pujji: Startups overly focus on macro conditions as an excuse
“I think startups overly focus on it, and again, like, find it and use it as an excuse for why they can't close a deal. You know, if you think about HR software. It's a multi-billion dollar market. If you're starting a two million dollar ARR company, getting to…”
Pujie: Early-stage startups should admit they are not yet defensible
“No business starts being defensible. And I think it's important for entrepreneurs pitching when a VC goes, oh, how do you make this defensible? You go, well, today it's not defensible. If it was, how the hell would I be starting it?”