“We were right about break even, but we were still losing money. And we were obviously employing like high value, like engineering, operations, designer.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Joseph Lee
Insight
Joseph Lee: Selling software 'vitamins' works when tech buyers seek an edge
“A lot of startups and a lot of companies within technology are looking for vitamins.
Yeah, if you, like, operate within a TAM and a buyer base that is always looking to improve and is, like, searching for solutions to problems they have, you're gonna do well b…”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 32:50He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
Insight
Joseph Lee: Bypassing seafood middlemen forces marketplaces to absorb immense supply variability
“Fish, typically, the majority of it isn't farmed, right? So wild caught, there's, Unpredictability when it comes to how much is caught, the timing of when something is caught, the pricing of the catch when it lands at the dock. So there's a lot of variability …”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 22:39He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
Insight
Joseph Lee: Market dynamics always trump founder quality in startups
“I think market always trumps founders when there's like a bad market and a good founder market wins.”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 31:29He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
“The way you transact, the way you sell products when it comes to fish, seafood is fundamentally different when it comes to when you compare it to, like, selling t-shirts, right? So you sell things by the poundage. You need to be able to factor in perishability…”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 10:19He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
Insight
Joseph Lee: Restaurant sales require in-person walk-ins over cold calls or emails
“So for selling to restaurants really, it's all about Walking in. So, like, you can call, you can email all you want, and people say cold calling is hard. People say emailing people is hard. Try walking into a restaurant, pretending like, you know, the chef, an…”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 14:06He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
Disclosure
Joseph Lee: Freshline's multi-million revenue dropped to zero during COVID-19 shutdowns
“Right around that point is also when COVID hit. So essentially we went from doing millions in revenue to essentially like nothing because RICP was higher end restaurants. So Japanese seafood restaurants, Italian restaurants. So the first kind of segment of res…”
Joseph LeeJul 10, 2025▶ 26:25He Hit $3.5M ARR and Still Failed. Here’s His #1 Mistake. | Joseph Lee, Founder of Freshline · PMF Show
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 250 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.