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 21 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Brian Scudamore fired his entire 11-person team at $500K in revenue
“Five years in, we were about a half a million in revenue, and I realized I wasn't having fun any longer. I was avoiding spending time with my employees, and I just, I had the wrong people, and I realized that one bad apple spoils a whole bunch, and I had nine …”
Scudamore: WOW 1 DAY PAINTING will surpass 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
“One day it will be bigger than one 800 got junk simply because the painting space is even that much larger than junk removal.”
Scudamore: Audiences connect to founders differently than hired executives
“Everyone buys into a founder story in a different way than a hired gun.”
Having two impulsive executives at the top fails scaling companies
“But what started to break was that you had two ADD fire ready aim types at the top of the company. That's you and Cameron. Yeah. And that just doesn't work. We started to make poor decisions together.”
Scudamore: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Revenue Plunged from $119M to $80M
“After 20 years of growth, we went from a hundred and nineteen million in revenue is what we'd hit at that peak at that time, and we dropped down to the eighties.”
1-800-GOT-JUNK? was 90 days from bankruptcy before laying off 52 employees
“We couldn't have been closer. I mean, I would have given us another 90 days if we'd continued down that path. We had overspent so drastically. On big bets that didn't pay off, and I had to hunker down. I had to lay off 52 people.”
Scudamore admits an IPO and VC funding would yield more personal wealth
“I probably would have made more money in the long term if I'd done a corporate model and an IPO and raised money.”
Scudamore: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? is a $700M business
“One-eight-hundred-got-junk is a seven hundred million dollar business.”
Brian Scudamore: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? was profitable in two weeks
“Yeah, my business, and this is unheard of, was profitable in two weeks.”
Scudamore: Built Junk Removal Business Entirely Out of Cash Flow
“I didn't. I was lucky. I built a business out of cash flow.”
Scudamore: First 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Franchisee Made $1M in Year One
“He did a million dollars in revenue in his first full calendar year.”
Idaho's Department of Transportation accidentally owned the 1-800-GOT-JUNK phone number
“Yeah, so the Department of Transportation in Idaho owned this one 800 got junk phone number. They didn't know it spelt got junk, but they were using this phone number.”
Scudamore: Fortune feature drove 506 inbound franchise calls in four days
“The story came out, hit the ground on a Thursday, and we ended up getting 506 phone calls from Thursday to Sunday.”
Scudamore: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? closed 53 franchise deals in a single year
“We ended up doing 53 franchise deals that year, which was just unheard of in the franchise space, and things just started to hockey stick and completely explode.”
COO Cameron Herold helped scale 1-800-GOT-JUNK? from $2M to $106M
“We grew from together from two million to one hundred and six million in a very short period of time.”
Brian Scudamore failed high school and never graduated 12th grade
“I failed many years throughout high school. I ultimately was one course short from finishing high school. So, 12th grade, didn't finish, didn't graduate”
Scudamore convinced a university to admit him without a high school diploma
“So, I went to one of the universities and said, I don't have my high school graduation. I'm smart enough. I can do this. I wrote them letters, and I spent time in the admissions office, and finally they said, okay, we're gonna let you in.”
Scudamore: 1-800-GOT-JUNK? began with a $700 Ford F-100 pickup truck
“I had a thousand dollars of my own money, and I spent 700 dollars on a beat-up truck of my own, and it was this little blue Ford F-One hundred”
Scudamore: First summer of junk hauling netted $1,700 profit in 1989
“Within two weeks, I'd made enough money that I'd paid for the business. I adjusted my prices quickly, I worked hard, and I made 1700 dollars in net profit. That summer.”
Scudamore: Cold-Calling The Vancouver Province Landed Front-Page Free Press
“I picked up the phone, and I called up the Vancouver Province, our biggest newspaper at the time, and it must have been a slow news day, because I said, I got a great story for you, and they said, what is it? And I told them, and they sent out a reporter, and …”