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 58 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
Lore: Quidsi rejected a competing buyout offer $100M higher after Amazon threats
“Yeah, it's even, even worse that we got a higher offer that we didn't take.”
Amazon threatened to drop diaper prices to zero if Quidsi resisted sale
“They said, well, yeah, we're gonna take the price of diapers to zero, and we're gonna, you know, and they made some analogies to some other, used explicit language, and it was pretty scary stuff.”
Quidsi rejected a $100M higher buyout offer due to Amazon retaliation threats
“Because Amazon very clearly stated that if we took that offer, they would do even more to harm the business.”
Amazon explicitly threatened to price diapers at zero to force Quidsi sale
“They said, well, yeah, we're gonna take the price of diapers to zero, and we're gonna, you know, and they made some analogies to some other, used explicit language, and it was pretty scary stuff. I'll just leave it at that.”
Lore pitched investors that Jet.com would lose $3B before turning profitable
“I told the investors we needed, we were gonna lose three billion dollars.”
Jet.com raised a $618M Series A while operating with negative gross margins
“But the real key was raising, we did a six hundred and eighteen million dollar Series A. So we'd raised some money before that, and then we had the six hundred million Series A. That was a really tough round to get done. That was, at that time, we had negative…”
Walmart acquired Bonobos strategically to change its image and attract elite talent
“The most strategic part of the plan was to change the narrative. I knew that we didn't have the talent inside of Walmart at the time to do what we needed to do. We had to attract the best people in the world, and at that point, you know, honestly, that wasn't …”
Lore: Big chocolate brands cannot execute a customizable direct-to-consumer model
“There's no way a big company can do the sort of build a bear type approach and chocolate. And so you could really own that market.”
Lore: Price for scale and take zero margin to expand market
“I'm always Thinking about scale and working backwards, and I would say, you know, at sort of ten million units, what's your cost, ah, of the display and the packaging, you know, like, and then figure out what the retail price would be off the back of that, and…”
Lore: Interviews cannot assess candidates; hiring must rely on track records
“Thought I can interview somebody and find out if they're good, and you just can't. It comes down to resume. You have a history. You've been in the workforce. What have you done?”
Lore: AI-driven text commerce will act like a best friend recommending products
“Using artificial intelligence and texting, I think people would be able to, in the future, just text what they want, and the system would know you as well as your best friend or family member, and be able to recommend precisely what you want, and either using …”
P&G and Kimberly-Clark initially refused to sell to Diapers.com
“Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark, the two big diaper manufacturers that make Pampers and Huggies, they refused to sell us diapers. They said they just don't want to waste their time on a business that's never going to work.”
Founders should solve customer love first and unit economics later
“The learning, you know, just, and it still stands today, it's the idea that as long as customers love the service, and they're repeating, and they give you good marks, that you had something. You had something that was valuable. You had a brand, and there was …”
Founders only reach maximum execution when they cannot afford to lose
“It's only when you have your life on the line and you can't afford to lose can you find the sixth gear. And when you're in that sixth gear, at least for me, It's like a out-of-body experience. It is like you don't have time to worry, think, be anxious, just ha…”
VCs rejected Quidsi's $100M funding round because Amazon was targeting them
“We had only raised 50,000,055 million dollars up until that point, which was pretty modest amount of money raised compared to today's standards, but we went out and we needed another hundred million to keep all the websites going and to really blow it out. We …”
Amazon told Quidsi's team to keep competing against them post-acquisition
“Like, Amazon didn't even, when they brought us in, say, hey, we want you guys to run the mom, baby, parent category within Amazon. They said, you know what, just keep doing what you're doing. Just continue to keep competing with us.”
Jet.com reached a $1B revenue run rate within 10 months of launching
“I mean, we got to a billion people Run rate in revenue within 10 months of the business launching, which was I think probably unprecedented at the time.”
Jet.com burned roughly $40 million per month after its launch
“We were burning about forty million a month.”
Lore killed $30M in revenue and 450 trucks to pivot Wonder
“Telling the board 450 trucks on the road and thirty million in revenue. We're going to take that to zero. We're selling the trucks. We'll take revenue to zero.”
Lore: Founders must ignore sunk costs and pivot toward superior opportunities
“You have to have the mentality that you start off a startup, and you're sort of digging for silver, but you gotta be on the lookout for gold all the time, and you might just see gold, and when you see it, you gotta go for it, and it doesn't matter what egg on …”
Lore: Wonder built 20 mobile restaurant chains that cook at customer doors
“Well, we've built now 20 restaurant chains across all different cuisines, and we put it on a mobile platform so that the restaurant actually comes to you, cooks right outside your door very fast in a high-speed convection oven, and brings the food piping hot t…”
Lore: Nearly 75% of Wonder customers place a repeat order within 60 days
“Close to three quarters of all the customers that try it will come back in the first 60 days.”
Lore: Wonder achieved over 70% household penetration in its first launch market
“In Westfield, the first town, we're over 70% household penetration.”
Lore: Customer love and retention matter more early than unit economics
“It's the idea that as long as customers love the service, and they're repeating, and they give you good marks, that you had something. You had something that was valuable. You had a brand, and there was lots of ways to solve the economics, is what we thought a…”
Lore: Amazon's 30% diaper price cut was unprecedented in retail history
“It was unheard of at the time, you know, the idea that a commodity product that already lost money, it's already a loss leader, that you would lose another 30%. That's unheard of, unprecedented in the history of retail.”
Lore: Jet.com reached a $1B revenue run rate in 10 months
“I mean, we got to a billion run rate in revenue within 10 months of the business launching, which was, I think, probably unprecedented at the time.”
Lore: Jet.com's $50 annual membership model would have succeeded
“No, I still continue to think to this day that that would have worked well.”
Lore: Jet.com raised $618M despite having negative gross margins
“But the real key was raising, we did a six hundred and eighteen million dollar Series A. So we'd raised some money before that, and then we had the six hundred million Series A. That was a really tough round to get done. That was, at that time, we had negative…”
Diapers.com profited by cross-shipping items in the empty space of diaper boxes
“But you could make money, because the way shipping works is, if you're shipping a box of diapers to someone, and you have empty space in that box, the marginal cost to ship the next thing you put in the box is very, very small, very low. Like, it might be, you…”
Jet.com paid identical salaries to all employees at the same organizational tier
“The transparency of salaries so everybody could see what everybody else was making. The fact that everybody in the company at the same level made exactly the same amount, you know, to really prevent unconscious bias from creeping in and things like that.”
Lore and co-founder didn't celebrate selling Diapers.com to Amazon
“We had a big vision for what we wanted to accomplish, and it was cut short. So, yeah, it was, I mean, you would think after a sale like that, we made, obviously, a lot of money, me and my co-founder, but we said, do you want to celebrate? You want to go grab a…”
Lore: Deep regional penetration is more valuable to acquirers than shallow national
“If you are thinking about selling it, then it would be more valuable to have deeper penetration in a regional market than a shallow penetration in a national market.”
Lore: Entrepreneurial opportunity lies in low-probability, massive-upside bets
“Cause you know, corporations, they just tend to shy away from risk and low probability outcomes. And I sort of gravitate more toward Low probability outcome, but massive upside. And I think that's where the opportunity lies for an entrepreneur.”
Lore: Consumers will refuse to accept soggy delivery fries within ten years
“I don't think. 10 years from now, people are going to still be satisfied with soggy fries.”
Lore: Wonder mobile food trucks operate with a single driver-cook
“The one person drives and cooks and brings it to your door. So there's only one person on the truck.”
Lore: Rolling Wonder out across the US will take 10 to 15 years
“It's going to take probably, you know, 10 to 15 years to roll it out across the country. It's not something you do in just a couple years.”
Lore: Capital-intensive, difficult-to-execute businesses provide the best defense against copycats
“I like hard businesses. I like businesses that require capital and are hard. To execute, because if you pull it off it makes it really difficult to be a copycat.”
Lore: Unlimited online shelf space makes subsidizing loss-leaders viable
“Online, the difference between a brick and mortar and online is online, you can sell so many more things because the unlimited shelf space. So we thought, okay, great. So let's drive people, you know, we're going to lose more money than a brick and mortar does…”
Lore: Diapers.com hit $11M in revenue with only three employees
“At eleven million in sales, it was basically just me and Vinny, and we hired another woman to, like, help us with customer care, and some of the fulfillment, but we got up to eleven million in sales with two people, three people, basically.”
Lore: Dimensional shipping makes basket-building incremental margin highly profitable
“The way shipping works is if you're shipping a box of diapers to someone and you have empty space in that box, the marginal cost to ship the next thing you put in the box is very, very small, very low. Like it might be, you put something that weighs a pound in…”
Lore qualified for the U.S. National Bobsled Team by finishing 13th
“And then at the end of the month, they had like the time trials to see who makes the U.S. National team and they were going to take 13 people and I finished 13th.”
Marc Lore invested his entire $390,000 life savings to launch The Pit
“I invested 390,000 of my own money into the company. And, you know, the investors, the angel investors said, we're not sure about this idea, but wait, I see here, Mark, you invested 390 grand. That's a lot of money. You know, you're not that old. Why 390 and w…”
Online diaper sales did not exist at normal retail prices in 2004
“It might have been 2003, 2004, somewhere around there. You could not buy diapers at a normal price. They were, like, prices were, like, jacked to ridiculous levels. It just wasn't a thing. Nobody bought them online.”
Diapers.com reached $11M in sales with only three total employees
“At eleven million in sales, it was basically just me and Vinny, and we hired another woman to, like, help us with customer care and some of the fulfillment. But we got up to eleven million in sales with two people, three people, basically.”
Lore: Wonder gives all workers starting pay over $20, benefits, and equity
“We pay people pretty well, so it's over 20 dollars an hour starting, and up from there, full health benefits, and we also give everyone stock in wonder.”
Lore: Wonder expects to partner with 30 restaurant chains by July 2023
“So by next summer, by July, we'll have 30 restaurant chains, which we believe is, is around the right number.”
Marc Lore: Early competitive drive came from seeking father's love through achievement
“My dad, you know, was not completely present, and the only way to get my dad's attention was to do something extraordinary. So it's sort of programming as a young kid, like, to associate doing big things with feeling loved, basically. I didn't realize that gro…”