Matt Meeker
Co-founder & CEO, BARK · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
36statements → 24claims → 11claims resolved → 64%fully supported → 3.83/5average certainty → 1.31/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →
7 supported 3 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 11 not checkable as stated how the 24 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
2 predictions · 22 assertions · 2 opinions · 3 insights · 6 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 24 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 11 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 11 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Matt argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Meetup Launched Globally Across Hundreds of Topics on Day One
“No, it was everywhere. Which probably went as well as that sounds like it would go. You've got a computer in New York City making decisions of how things should go in Moscow. We started with a couple hundred topics, and then we would tell people, it's seven p.…”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Matt Meeker on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Matt Meeker said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Bark Air Aims to Reduce Ticket Prices to $600 Within One Year
“We have line of sight to, how do we get to that 600 dollar ticket? We have very clear line of sight to doing that, I'd say, in the next year.”
Bark Walked Away From an Active 2018 Fundraise to Sustain Itself
“We, I definitely freaked out my board and our investors but walked away from the fundraising round and said, forget it.”
Meeker: Corporate Executives Often Struggle to Adapt to Early-Stage Startups
“So you have very talented people who are bringing You know, imagine you're running marketing for AT&T one day, and the next day you're trying to start something. You're bringing that approach. And it meant we spent a lot of days in conference rooms talking abo…”
Meeker Traded Loaded iPods for Meetup Angel Investor Checks
“It was the exact moment where the iPod came out, and we sent notes to all of them, and we said, hey, Matt's gonna come up and pick up your paperwork and your check and if you hand it to him today, he's gonna hand you back an iPod pre-populated with a thousand …”
Meetup Launched Globally Across Hundreds of Topics on Day One
“No, it was everywhere. Which probably went as well as that sounds like it would go. You've got a computer in New York City making decisions of how things should go in Moscow. We started with a couple hundred topics, and then we would tell people, it's seven p.…”
Howard Dean Promised to Plug Meetup at Every Campaign Speech
“That turned into a meeting with Governor Dean and Joe Trippi, his campaign manager, at which they said I intend to run for president, and I don't have a lot of money, but I can promise you this, from now until the day I get out of the race, I will end every sp…”
BarkBox Sold $15 Groupon Subscriptions Despite Having $20 Box Costs
“If I remember right, we were selling three-month subscriptions for 45 dollars so 15 dollars a month, but you'd probably have a 20 dollar cost of goods in every box.”
Accepting Venture Capital Forces Founders to Build a Different Business
“I think it meant you're, you come to that fork in the road of, if you're taking venture capital on, you're now deciding to build a different kind of business in a different way.”
Bark Crushed Copycat Competitors by Deliberately Outspending Them on Ad Channels
“They're usually copying the whole playbook, so taking to Google search or Facebook advertising, and it's easy enough to just lean on them and outspend them. If you're bigger, we'll, we'll bleed you over time, and that happened time after time after time.”
Bark Founders Ignored Market Sizing and Avoided Data When Choosing Toys
“We never looked at the market data or the market sizing and said, let's go here. If we had, we would have never chosen toys.”
Bark Required Its Incoming Pandemic-Era CEO to Commute From Seattle
“And a very good guy that I think we put into difficult spot. You're saying to someone, take on a CEO role. Take it on in the middle of a pandemic. You'll live in Seattle, but you'll commute to New York. That's fun. You won't get the opportunity to meet most of…”
Bark Burned $194 Million During Its 2022 Fiscal Year
“So that year ending March 31st, we burned a hundred and ninety-four million dollars, and if we had done that for the next 12 months, that would have been it. We're done. We're gone.”
Bark Holds a Ten Percent Share of the Dog Toy Market
“And it does get, it gets poo-pooed by a lot of people because, well, that's only three and a half billion dollar industry. And you already own 10% of it.”
Meeker Projects Bark Will Achieve Net Profitability This Fiscal Year
“This year, we should make four or five million dollars. And up from there.”
Meetup Found Its Co-Founder CTO Through a Craigslist Ad
“We put an ad on Craigslist. It was very obnoxious saying interviews are next week. We were looking for a co-founder CTO. If you're not here in New York City next week, then you're, you can't be interviewed, and that's it. Within 24 hours, we had 450 applicants…”
Early Meetup Saw a 50% In-Person Show Rate from RSVPs
“Worldwide, what we would see is about half of the people who RSVP'd would actually show up.”
Meetup Took Four Years to Adopt a Subscription Business Model
“It took us probably four years to get to the subscription service.”
Meetup Reached Profitability and 10 Million Active Users by 2008
“Growing quickly, profitable, supportive investors and board, everything looking very good, and ten million plus active members worldwide every month.”
Bark Sold Early Subscriptions Using a Phone Mockup and Square Reader
“So I started to carry a square in my pocket, and I'd show people, and they'd give me the reaction. I'd plug the square in, and I'd say, it's live. Swipe your card. And I'd hand, hand the phone to them, and their faces would change. They'd be like, well, so the…”
Bark Launched With $10,000 and No Initial Venture Capital Ambitions
“Henrik and I together put in 10,000 dollars, and it kind of that same story of too much money or money at all. Isn't the type of company we want to build. We want to build something for us and something that's profitable, and this isn't going to be a venture-b…”
Bark Founders Gave Carly Strife a One-Third Equal Equity Stake
“We did an equal chunk of equity. So a third of the company.”
BarkBox Reached 15,000 Subscribers by the End of Its First Year
“That first year we thought we were huge, where we ended the year with about 15,000 subscribers.”
BarkBox Experienced Zero Customer Churn During Its First Four Months
“So I remember the first four months that we were alive, we had no churn, not one subscriber left. Now, not a whole lot of subscribers there, but out of over a hundred, no one left.”
Bark's Seed Investor Conditioned Funding on Meeker Becoming Full-Time CEO
“In May of 2012, Mike Hirschland, who had started Dogpatch Labs, and Mike and I obviously worked closely while, while I was there, and he reached out and said, I'm starting this new fund. Can I invest in this thing? Can I lead a round for you? But that came wit…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| BARK: Matt Meeker | Nov 4, 2024 | 39m |