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 14 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
Holden: Naming a Business After Yourself Shows a Lack of Humility
“Anybody who names a business after themselves is probably not a very humble person.”
Holden: 2008 Recession Was Essential to Securing First Lease and Talent
“Without a recession, there's no way a landlord would have taken a chance on us. There's no chance that I would have found smart, motivated people that needed jobs or were out there and available.”
Luke's Lobster cut operations to one shack before reopening 12 locations
“We ended up shutting everything down besides one shack, and now we've got Sifu Company back up and going. We've got 12 shacks up and going.”
Luke's Lobster started selling scallops to support their lobster fishermen
“I mean, in, in some ways, like for the example of this spring, we started selling Debo's scallops. We'd never sold them before, but the guys that catch our lobster at that time of year, Also go out and catch scallops, and they didn't have a home for a lot of t…”
Pandemic hit Luke's Lobster in March when annual cash reserves were lowest
“We were a very seasonal business to begin with. Like we make most of our hay, Memorial Day to Labor Day. And this couldn't have happened at a worse time for a business like us, because we're kind of at the end of our rope to begin with. We're just at the end o…”
Whole Foods approached Luke's Lobster to absorb surplus restaurant inventory
“They were actually eager to help us move more seafood, and they came to us and asked how they could actually buy more lobster, and how they could, you know, put inventory we would have sent to our restaurants into their seafood case, or into an innovative prod…”
Luke Holden predicts Luke's Lobster grocery volume will top 1M units
“Our grocery branded business in 2009, we probably did around 200,000 units between two different SKUs will be over a million units this year.”
Luke's Lobster Funds Ocean Foundation Research Into Carbon-Sequestering Kelp Aquaculture
“A great example is the kelp business that we've been investing in. So kelp sequesters carbon, and we've been putting funds through the Ocean Foundation to go out and do the research to understand how that type of aquaculture can positively affect the environme…”
Founders Reinvested All Earnings From First Six Locations Into Processing Plant
“We're going to take every penny of earnings that we've accumulated from six plus locations over a couple of years. We're going to put that next to some debt that we're going to raise, and we're going to push all of those chips in on an extremely difficult to m…”
Luke's Lobster Sourced Seafood Directly From Fishermen to Secure Unit Economics
“Working directly with a processor, working directly with fishermen, there was no middleman from day one. So we had access to the best quality product at the best price, and our economic model was, we needed volume in order to be successful.”
Holden's Father Borrowed Against 401(k) to Match $15,000 Initial Capital
“So, I had about 15,000 dollars in savings. My dad, I said, could you match this and be fifty-fifty partners with me? He says yes. A couple years later, he told me he literally borrowed the money against his four-oh-and-k.”
Supplier Father Gave Luke's Lobster 90-Day Payment Terms to Float Cash
“We were, and luckily he didn't make us pay for the first 90 days. So that really helped cash flow in the beginning.”