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 10 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
Zach Coelius: Hedge fund reneged on a $50M term sheet before closing
“We went out to all the VC firms, hedge funds, the usual late stage check writers, and a hedge fund came in. They're gonna put in fifty million dollars at a four hundred million dollar post... It's supposed to close on a Friday. On Thursday, the hedge fund's li…”
Zach Coelius: Venture fundraising difficulty is returning to 2008 levels
“And 12 months ago, you could have gotten a term sheet a week after you got, you walked in that door. Now it's going to be a much longer, much harder, much more arduous fundraising process, more similar to what we saw two or three years ago. Certainly what we s…”
Zach Coelius: Untrustworthy syndicate leads make founder pitches dead on arrival
“Because if you work with one of those folks, and they have a bad reputation in the industry, they can absolutely sink, sink your fundraise on the spot. Because there are people in the business who are not trustworthy, who run around with shitty deals, who gene…”
Zach Coelius: Founders should choose unaffiliated angel money over venture scouts
“Because if I had to choose between taking scout money Versus taking unaffiliated money. I would always take the unaffiliated money rather than taking the unnecessary signaling risk when you work with one of these firms, but without having them deeply involved.”
Zach Coelius: VC associates cannot close deals, but they can kill them
“One thing that I always like to tell the, my companies that I work with is that the associate can't necessarily get the deal done themselves. They're your advocate, but they can absolutely kill it. So if you don't make friends with your associate or whatever a…”
Zach Coelius: Founders should avoid venture partners lacking deep domain expertise
“Whenever I think about a venture partner, it's all about the expertise. If they have a deep expertise, super powerful, awesome. But if they don't, I wouldn't waste your time. They just, they're, it's going to be very challenging for them to get a deal through …”
Zach Coelius: Investor back-channeling is as important as the founder pitch
“And so you'll often find that like the back channel that happens behind the scenes where different investors and different angels and different
It spins in your cap table.
Talk to the next round investors is just as important as what you say when you're at the…”
Zach Coelius: The best portfolio companies consistently write the best investor updates
“There's this weird thing that I've seen is that my best companies always have the best investor updates and my worst companies always have the worst updates. I don't know what it is, but it always seems to work out to be true.”
Zach Coelius: Founders should interview VC associates for competitor intelligence
“I think one of the other good things to think about when you work with associates is they can inform you about what they're seeing in the market in really powerful ways. So they spend A lot of time focused on your sector, your competitors, your ecosystem gener…”
Zach Coelius: Startups need a repeatable soundbite to survive VC telephone
“So you go to the associate, and you're like, this is what our company does, and you have one sentence, and you describe it. Now imagine that associate is going to go tell the partner that, and they maybe are going to garble it and jumble it on the way, and the…”