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 12 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
Katlin Smith: Chicago is the best US city for CPG talent
“There's probably no better place in the United States to recruit consumer talent.”
Katlin Smith: Packaging design is a consumer brand's top marketing vehicle
“Having a really good package design is something that is really important because it's the, it is your number one marketing vehicle. As a consumer brand.”
Smith: Legacy CPGs often spend $50M to launch one product line
“A lot of times to launch a single brand or a single product line in some of these CPGs, they spend fifty million dollars”
Smith: Funding consumer startups is easier now than a decade ago
“It's also it's become a lot easier to get funded as a consumer business in the past 10 years than it was then but at the time, just, everyone just wants the tech unicorn, and so, like, why am I gonna invest in a baking mix company?”
Katlin Smith: When Simple Mills started, no grocery products used almond flour
“This is a time where nothing in the grocery store is made out of almond flour. I think it had just shown up as an ingredient on shelves”
Katlin Smith sold her car and maxed credit cards to fund operations
“I ended up selling my car and maxing out all my credit cards and getting, spending all my savings just pretty much on working capital.”
Katlin Smith's parents mortgaged their home for her $200,000 seed capital
“My parents end up they were really upset about this because they've been a long time family friend, and I come home and tell them this, and they decide to mortgage their house and give me 200,000 dollars.”
Katlin Smith repaid half her parents' $200,000 loan to reduce stress
“I mean, we ended up raising our first round about four months later. And when they, when we raised the first round, I actually asked that half of it get paid back because it was just, it's so stressful having your family's money on the line like that.”
Simple Mills' first three funding rounds came entirely from angel investors
“All of our initial investors, and in fact for a long time like our first three rounds were all angel investors.”
Katlin Smith: Simple Mills raised under $10 million in its first eight years
“To give you a sense, in our first, call it eight years of business, I think we raised less than ten million dollars.”