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 30 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
Companies must fire high performers who violate core values
“If you have somebody that maybe is a high performer, but is clearly not consistent with your values, you have to be willing to part ways with them, even if that's going to be tough for a while for your company.”
Companies should hire for proven problem-solving over aspirational potential
“I think that I've made the mistake historically of hiring aspirationally when I think that you're much better off, or at least I'm much better off, Hiring somebody that's already solved the problem that I've already noticed I need to solve.”
Disproportionate success requires obsession because competitors are obsessed
“Yeah, I mean, I think if you want to do anything big, you have to be obsessed, because if not, you're competing with somebody who is. And, you know, it's completely okay not to be obsessed. I mean, there's, and not to be super driven, or, like, there's no Ther…”
Founders must personally build operating systems for novel businesses
“You as an entrepreneur have to really understand your business if you want to be able to scale and do anything big. And it's almost impossible, in my opinion, especially when you're smaller, to hire somebody that That's going to build the systems that you need…”
Converting Amazon shoppers to direct DTC is a fool's errand
“Early on, I would spend some time thinking about that, and honestly, I realized, at least in our case, and maybe everybody's different, it's a fool's errand. I mean, it's like there's a reason why customers choose to buy on Amazon.”
Competitors outsourcing core functions will struggle against hands-on founders
“I think the fact that I understand our finance function, I understand our marketing function. I understand our manufacturing and operations function. I understand our shipping function. All with a great level of detail puts me in a position that if you want to…”
Most D2C brands just outsource manufacturing and 3PL fulfillment
“Basically every direct to consumer quote unquote brand that I'm aware of is effectively You know, manufacturing their product with an, with a overseas contract manufacturer putting their name on it, and maybe they're doing some innovation in the product itself…”
Almost all Filterbuy senior hires fled miserable PE-backed firms
“Almost every major person that I've hired at management level has come from A company that was owned by a private equity company, and they absolutely hated it, and they were looking for, you know, a different path.”
Filterbuy will reach $1 billion in revenue within ten years
“In the next five to 10 years, I intend to take that to a billion dollars plus.”
Filterbuy captures 25% to 33% of Amazon furnace filter sales
“Between one and four and one and three filters purchased in the furnace filter category on Amazon is one of ours.”
Heacock chose building Filterbuy over a multi-hundred-million-dollar retirement
“You know, about two years ago, and really when I started working with Dr. Gurner, I was, you know, having a little bit of a crisis of self in that, you know, what do I want out of life? I could sell the business and you know, have more money than I could ever …”
No air filter competitor matches Filterbuy's vertically integrated scale
“There are a lot of manufacturers of air filters. There are a lot of, you know, retailers and distributors of air filters, but there's nobody at least at our scale that does the whole thing from, you know, raw material to effectively in delivery.”
Heacock has no intention to sell or flip Filterbuy
“And, you know, I have no intention to sell my businesses. I think there's a world in which we may go public one day way down the road. But other than that, like I've, I'm in it for the long haul, and I don't have any intention to buy it and, you know, flip it,…”
Filterbuy launches in 505 Walmart stores
“We just launched in 505 Walmarts and really have a big retail strategy going forward.”
Filterbuy needed four years to beat wholesaler manufacturing costs
“It really took me three to four years to get to the point where we could manufacture a product profitably. And what I mean by that is until that three or four year period, it would have been cheaper for me to buy the product we were selling from a large manufa…”
Filterbuy sells 10,000 to 20,000 units weekly in 505 Walmart stores
“We now are selling between 10 and 20,000 units a week in Walmart, and that's 10 to 20,000 new to potential new to brand customers a week that we are reaching just in our kind of trial, 505 store period in Walmart.”
Filterbuy fulfills 100% of its Amazon orders directly
“We fulfill a hundred percent of our orders on Amazon.”
Filterbuy will reach roughly $250 million in revenue in 2024
“And, you know, now in 20, 24, we'll do about two hundred fifty million dollars of revenue.”
Starting a freight business during COVID was a big mistake
“Like I started a freight business during COVID, and that I could kind of squint and say made sense because I'm in the logistics business after all, right? But, it ended up being a big mistake”
Filterbuy makes air filters for $2 and sells them for $12
“We manufacture an air filter for about two dollars and sell it on average for 12.”
Filterbuy is fully bootstrapped with no board of directors
“First of all, I'm a bootstrapped entrepreneur. I own my own business. I don't have a board of directors, and so I don't have accountability that's baked in, right?”
Filterbuy generated $70 million in revenue in 2019
“In 2019, we did about seventy million dollars of revenue.”
Filterbuy targets $42M in marketing spend after $38M year
“Our budget next year is forty-two million dollars for our marketing in general. So, like, we've spent about 40, it's a forty-two million dollar line item for us. At least going into next year, I think it was thirty-eight million dollars this year.”
Heacock liquidated Filterbuy's truck fleet in 2023, losing millions
“Ultimately, I liquidated all of those trucks at the end of twenty-twenty-three. All in, that probably was a three or four million dollar mistake on my side.”
Filterbuy has sold to roughly eight million unique US residences
“We have sold to Somewhere around eight million unique residences across the country.”
Filterbuy lost $2 million on Prime Day due to an Amazon glitch
“We had a big Prime deal that was running, and by some glitch of the system I got a call at three o'clock in the morning from someone at Amazon that our deal was not running, and they were looking at fixing it. I got up, started monitoring it, and by nine o'clo…”
Building a public personal brand burns alternative career options
“And, you know, a big motivation for me going so public with my personal brand in the last couple of months is Really about burning the boats behind me because, you know, I'm on a mission to build the world's leading indoor air quality company, and, you know, I…”
Heacock rejects labeling Filterbuy a D2C brand
“I do not want to be considered a direct to consumer brand. I want to be an indoor air quality brand. I mean, that, that's really what I want to be because I think direct to consumer is so limiting.”
Heacock spent his last $55,000 on a hot glue laminator
“I spent, you know, like, 55,000 dollars, probably close to the last 55 grand I had to buy that, that hot glue laminator.”
Heacock commuted NYC to Alabama weekly for Filterbuy's first three years
“I actually kept a car in Atlanta at the, you know, parking go where I would go there on Monday morning and then drive from Atlanta to Talladega. It's about a two hour drive. And I would stay there Monday through Friday and come back, and so for the first three…”