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
SpotHero's sales now exceed all digital parking competitors combined
“Yeah, I would say, like, we are the largest. Like, we have 1600 parking companies that we partner with, and when you look at, you know, the sales that we're doing, usually it's greater than all the others combined.”
Bullpen Capital warned SpotHero needed a San Francisco presence for Series B
“And bullpen capital, Who, you know, co-led our round, you know, their view was, you're not raising a Series B, and you're not going to be taken seriously if you're not in, in San Francisco.”
VCs poured $500M into on-demand valet parking startups
“Half a billion dollars went to fund companies that said we were the relic.”
Lawrence: SpotHero bookings plummeted 98% in April 2020, forcing 70% layoffs
“April was 98%. Yeah, May was 95. Whew. It was just an absolute brutal set of decisions to, you know, having to lay off you know, close to 70% of the company.”
SpotHero acquired only 50 parking spots after one year of hustling
“Ultimately, even people that said yes, they might have moved, or they're like, I need my spot now, and we were able to get about 50 spots after about a year.”
Y Combinator rejected SpotHero over an unproven technical cofounder relationship
“And the key reason they said no was because we had, we, they didn't believe that we knew Larry long enough. And they were like, it's a huge risk to have two business founders and a technical co-founder of which was such a new relationship.”
SpotHero grew monthly sales from $5,000 to $80,000 between January and May 2012
“But I remember in 2012, sales ramped in, you know, January, February, March, April, May, from you know, 5000 a month to 80,000 a month in May.”
Lawrence: SpotHero and Parking Panda were the top two players in 2017
“And so, it was interesting because they were actually the number two at the time. They were the second largest at the time. And we were the first.”
Lawrence: SpotHero and Parking Panda had only 5% to 10% overlap
“Yes, and that meant that together, the overlap was so low, there's literally going to be five percent, maybe 10% overlap, and that was a really great acquisition.”
SpotHero is currently 3.5x larger than it was before COVID-19
“Right now, we are, you know, three and a half times larger now than we were pre-COVID.”
Mark Lawrence amassed $5,000 in parking tickets before founding SpotHero
“Yeah, I mean, it was about 5000 dollars worth of parking tickets.”
SpotHero sold out its first parking spot daily on Craigslist
“We would sell out his spot every day on Craigslist.”
Early SpotHero required customers to print dashboard emails to avoid towing
“Yeah, so I mean, there was definitely a lot of friction because the only way that it would work is you had to print out your confirmation. So you had to print out an email. So you had to have a printer. And so, you know, and if you didn't print it out and put …”