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 9 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
Acton Smith: Not selling Mind Candy to Disney was probably a mistake
“When you're an entrepreneur, you do need to think of all the stakeholders and investors and employees. Not selling was probably a mistake in hindsight.”
Acton Smith bought Calm.com for $140,000 using his house deposit
“I think 140,000 dollars, about, he sold it for. About that, yeah. I would, I earmarked that money for a deposit for a house”
Acton Smith: Silicon Valley offered scaling talent and openness lacking in London
“Silicon Valley was the place to build this business. You know, the, there was more investors who were open to ideas like this. The climate was more open to it as well. A lot of our friends and people we knew in London were very, very skeptical of meditation an…”
Acton Smith: Calm's target market is anyone with a mind
“The market we did feel was absolutely enormous. It wasn't just the people who are meditating. It was, you Pretty much anyone with a mind. So we felt there were going to be multiple winners. Not a winner takes all market, but a winner takes most.”
Acton Smith: Calm's revenue surged from $7M to $21M to $80M
“So our revenue went from, you know, seven million to twenty one million to eighty million.”
Mind Candy buried a $200,000 treasure for game Perplex City
“So that's what Perplex City was, and to cut a very, very long story short, we buried a treasure worth 200,000 dollars somewhere in the world, and then we set about releasing clues across all sorts of different media.”
Acton Smith: Calm pitched Sand Hill Road VCs and struck out
“Yeah, we went up and down Sand Hill Road and struck out.”
Acton Smith: Calm put all key celebrity partners on its cap table
“So all the key talent we brought on board are on our cap table.”
Michael Acton Smith: Mind Candy unraveled despite widespread public accolades
“I was on billboards and posters around East London. I was being interviewed on TV shows winning awards left, right, and center, but knowing in the pit of my stomach and at four a.m. That this was unraveling and this was falling apart.”