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 32 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
Manthani: Agent swarms will run enterprise brand operations within 2-3 years
“In the next two to three years,
Everything that a brand does can probably be managed by, you know, a big swarm of agents that are doing a lot of tasks for the person, and a person managing, like the conductor of the orchestra, the owner of the brand, who's say…”
Gazdecki: Many 2021-era startups will never grow into their valuations
“A lot of startups over the past year just raised at too high of a valuation. They're never going to be able to grow into it.”
Startups that raised $40M will sell for $1M-$2M within 12 months
“And then the other thing I'm looking for is I'm waiting for that like company that raised 30, forty million dollars and now burned through it all, but built an amazing piece of tech to go and micro acquire and sell for a million or two. Like, It's inevitable. …”
Tinsley: MainStreet Can Reach Mid-Nine Figures ARR Within a Year
“I think like when I look out like a year from now, I think, you know, we can hit you know, mid, mid nine, nine figures, ARR, and like a very clear path of getting there ourselves and continue to grow to basically, you know, become the next, you know, accountin…”
Naveen Arun: Job availability will decline as entrepreneurial opportunities expand
“I mean, the jobs are going to come down. But then it'll propel the opportunities for entrepreneurs.”
Saini: B2B sales is shifting from AI cold outbound to expert-driven authenticity
“I think where the industry, the go-to-market is going is to more authentic, expert-driven, sort of like sales motion versus How many cold emails we can send out with AI personalization in it and see how many like people we can like hook with that. I think that…”
Levy-Garboua: SaaS Will Shift to a 'Record Label' Aggregator Model
“I think, I mean, I would say that one thing that I see, I believe, is that there will be more and more people that will have, that will be operating in multiple SaaS. Either SaaS that they've built, or SaaS that they've bought, or both, but, like, I, there is …”
Kozinsky: More VC 'fallen angels' will seek soft landings within two years
“There's probably going to be more opportunities like up council and our other businesses. That's the VC fallen angels, the businesses that have raised a lot of capital, but maybe haven't grown into, haven't fully grown into the scale that they should be at. So…”
Drury: More Shopify stores will close, affecting ecosystem apps
“And I think we're going to see a change in the merchant behavior on Shopify, which will of course have a trickle down effect into the apps. I think we're going to see a lot more stores closing, sadly.”
Kosarek: Crypto payments may become standard for Shopify transactions in 2022
“And then also we think this could be an interesting year where alternative forms of payments start to take off, right? The crypto wallets And other, you know, any cryptocurrency based payment out there may become more of a norm for a Shopify transaction than i…”
Graber: AI Disruption Makes Design and Branding More Critical Over Next Decade
“But I think going into 20, 26, just the next five, 10 years with AI, which we could discuss and how that's how that's causing chaos in the agency world, like brand branding, thought leadership, showing up to your audience with something that's like clear and c…”
Arun: Biophilic, open designs are the future of real estate
“I mean, this is the, ah, going to be the next wave of, ah, real estate or building homes, building office spaces, more open, more nature, more biophilic, you know, this is what is going to be the future.”
Naveen Arun: Global wellness economy will exceed $5T in five years
“It's going to be more than five trillion, ah, dollars wellness economy. Which has all these healthy eating, skincare beauty. It's all a lifestyle, I would call it, right? Almost more than five trillion in the next five years.”
Naveen Arun: Content creators launching products will define new startup culture
“Content is going to be the new startup culture. Content creation, YouTube, Instagram. People who are I mean, if you see already a lot of followers, you know, these content readers are going to start products.”
Gazdecki Predicts Direct Leads From AI Search Will Surge Soon
“Cause AI SEO, man, I think like I saw a post recently, like, 30% of direct leads were coming from ChatGPT and other platforms like that.
I bet over the next few years, they're just going to keep increasing, increasing.”
Gazdecki: AI tools will enable software startups to operate at high margins
“I think we're going to be seeing a lot of that just across the whole startup ecosystem with AI tools, making totally the cost of delivering software, people like you building products where it's really, you have a very You're operating the business at a very h…”
Mellstrom: Generational turnover in blue-collar SMBs will drive modern software adoption
“Look at like your local HVAC company. It's probably a 50 or 60 year old guy that owns the company. And he's thinking about, you know, either selling it or passing it down to his son. Either way, the new owner is going to be slightly more sophisticated than the…”
Keeley: More venture orphans unable to raise will seek acquisitions
“What's exciting to us is, like, more of these companies that are, like, struggling to raise their next round, like these venture orphans. I've seen a few come up on Microquire. I think we're going to see more of those pop up.”
Gazdecki: Founders Will Increasingly Build Startups Specifically to Sell
“It's almost like I can see a future where, you know, people are able to build products specifically to sell them to someone else. And then you get to go back to doing what you love, which is building.”
Davis: Downturn-driven founders will build IPO companies within a decade
“A lot of great people who maybe didn't have the risk appetite for entrepreneurship, maybe aren't as insane as you and I are when we do it kind of addictively, are going to come out and build wonderful organizations that we'll be talking about in five or 10 yea…”
Drury: Macro environment and inflation may slightly lower acquisition multiples
“I think this less so Shopify's earnings, but more so like the macro economic environment, inflationary environment will change the acquisition space a little bit. It might take multiples down a hair. They've been crazy high. Maybe that'll happen for those sell…”
Drury: Economic Downturn Will Expose Vaporware Apps and Ineffective Rollups
“And I think we're going to see a lot of like, what are the apps that are just like vaporware and not really doing anything to contribute to a merchant's bottom line? What are the companies that haven't been able to add value when they buy up these apps?”
First-time buyers will drive a surge in micro-PE acquisition activity
“I think we're going to see a lot more just general private equity activity specifically from first time buyers, like people, you know, just hearing about the success of like, You know, basically you know, entrepreneurship through acquisition is, is really beco…”
Successive stewardship will eventually create 100-year-old SaaS businesses
“There will be a time where you can look at a SaaS company and be like, that's a hundred year old SaaS business, and it's going to take, you know, a bunch of different people to kind of keep that going, and hopefully continue to add value to the community it se…”
Jabbar: Cash-Burning Startups Will Struggle to Raise and Face Bankruptcy or Sale
“I think like midterm, you also see even not just like buyers, but you know, VCs, investors will also be like more risk averse. So I wouldn't be surprised if like some of those high growth cash burning startups, like rely on constantly, you know, new rounds to …”
Garcia predicts acquired startup Monster VoIP can scale to $10 million ARR
“I think Monster, we could, I could scale that to, you know, 10, ten million dollars in AR are pretty, Not, not easily. It's been a long haul G-Twelve as an example to get past that, but ultimately I think it'd be a ten million dollar organization.”
Garcia predicts Engage.co can scale past $10 million ARR over ten years
“I think the shelf life is at least another 10 years for something like that. And I think that could scale to, you know, well over ten million dollars in ARR on its own.”
Crennan predicted in April 2022 that tech valuations would contract
“And so I think over the next 12 months or 20, 22, I think we're going to see some really bubbly valuations that we've had start to contract down again.”
Patel: Startup valuation expectations will normalize and decline in 2022
“I do think the market will normalize this year. It's already had a bit of a correction. And I think when I say normalize, I think it's been pretty stable. Like buyers like myself have kind of had a formula for how much we evaluate a company for a while. But th…”
Toledano predicts his $500K MicroAngel portfolio will return 2x in two years
“And because they are growing really slowly over a period of two years, they'll reach a certain point where the value of my portfolio will allow me to sell it. So I can perceive a two X return on that half a million dollars two years later.”
Yardini Projects EssayGrader Will Surpass $1M ARR By Year's End
“We are projecting just over a million dollars in recurring revenue.”
Sidhu predicts Stridist will reach multi-million annual revenue by 2025
“So I'm super confident in, you know, us getting to a few million revenue a year. Super confident. I don't think it'd be easy. I think there'll be periods of just stuck, but I think I think we can do that. I think that's an outcome we can get to in the next cou…”