Blake Hall led over 450 combat patrols during his Iraq deployment
Blake Hall · He fought Al Qaeda in Iraq, turned down $250K at McKinsey—& built a $150M+ ARR unicorn. Here’s ho... · PMF Show · Jul 1, 2024 · at 18:23
ID.me founder Blake Hall reflects on the high-stakes decisions and psychological pressures he faced leading an Army platoon in Iraq.
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“Led over 450 combat patrols.”
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ID.me signed up over 40 million Americans during the 2021 pandemic
“During the pandemic, I think in like 20, 21, we signed up over forty million Americans.”
ID.me reached 130 million users, signing up approximately half of America
“We have a hundred and thirty million users. We signed up half of America now”
Larry Cochran wrote a $75,000 angel check after meeting Hall mid-flight
“Met him on the plane. He wrote a 75,000 dollar check. And that's how we actually got to our first close of 525,000 dollars.”
ID.me's enterprise customers include Apple, BMW, Ford, and General Motors
“Today, our customers are Apple and BMW and Fanatics and Ford and GM and Cedar Fair and everything else and Under Armour.”
ID.me surpassed $150M ARR with 30% YoY growth and 80% margins
“And now over a hundred and fifty million in ARR, the business is growing at over 30% year over year. Our gross margins will push through 80%.”
Online military discounts lacked a verification mechanism before ID.me's founding
“I realized there was this huge problem impacting military families where the whole country kind of wanted to wrap their arms around the military, whether it was retailers or nonprofit government programs. And obviously military families wanted to access those …”