Joseph Lee describes the collapse of Freshline's core restaurant marketplace business at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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…”
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 …”
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.”
Insight
Joseph Lee: Seafood e-commerce requires complex variable poundage tracking unlike Shopify
“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…”
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…”
What-if
Joseph Lee: Freshline's marketplace model had fundamental cracks and was doomed anyway
“I think there were fundamental cracks with the model. And we may have lived on. And we may have raised more capital, but I think it was, it probably would have been like that by a thousand cuts instead of like one, you know, stab.”