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 583 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
Chaudry: Connected TVs drive 58% of watch time, averaging 42 minutes
“For our channel specifically, 58% of our watch time comes from connected TVs, and viewers are watching on average 42 minutes on connected TVs.”
Masad: Replit avoided giving its AI a human name to manage expectations
“We didn't name it Autopilot or Automatic Coder or what have you, or a person's name, because we just want to set the expectation that this is this is something that is going to be trying its best to do what you ask it for but not necessarily always succeeding.”
Autopilot's RIA Status Limits Paying Meme Accounts for Viral Reposts
“And we aren't able to do that as much anymore because of we're a registered investment advisor. And once you're on RIA, as on the autopilot side, you gotta be careful with payments and things of that nature.”
Josephs: Autopilot is transitioning to a creator portfolio marketplace
“The cool thing we're a marketplace now, so we're going to have people actually be launching their portfolios and we're going to be building content around those people.”
Isenberg: I prioritize audience comments before retention graphs or views
“I know for myself, when I create a piece of content, yes, I look at retention. Yes. I look at, you know, views. Yes. I look at subscribers, but the first thing I honestly look at is To see who's commenting. What are they saying? Are they enjoying it?”
Courtney: AJ&Smart spends $1 million annually on ads
“We at AJ and Smart run a million dollars of ads per year”
Isenberg: Failing to convert an LLC to an S-Corp cost millions
“We set up an LLC for one of our businesses in the States and it started making a bunch of money and we didn't realize that we should have converted it to an S corp. And which is another type of corporation. So and that cost us hundreds of thousands, if not mil…”
Fried: Sketching on steamy shower doors inspires my product interface designs
“I draw interfaces all the time on shower doors. That's where a lot of my, like, product interface ideas come from.”
Jason Fried: 37signals is trying to build weirder software products
“In our minds at 37 signals, we're actually, we've been pretty conscious lately, last few months specifically, actually been talking about this more internally and we're trying to make some really sort of
Weirder things.”
Kerner: Built 5,500 programmatic SEO pages across US and Canadian cities
“So we went to the five most searched keywords in our niche that have low competition, and we built 1100 landing pages for each one of them. A hundred for the top 100 Canadian cities by population, and a thousand for the top American cities by population, becau…”
Justin Welsh starts all content on X for its 10-minute feedback loop
“Everything that I do starts with a tweet, right? Like I might try and think of something interesting or useful to say on, on X, right? I throw those out there because there's a short feedback window. So, you know, you get feedback in 10 minutes, you know, whet…”
Isenberg: Logitech offered to pay $10,000 for a single text post
“And some of these brand deals, like, I think Logitech wanted to pay me, like, 10 grand for, like, a text post, you know?”
Pujji: Made $200K/year consulting on GLG and AlphaSights at Ampush
“When I was running Ampush, I was making like, 200,000 dollars a year doing GLG and like alpha sites calls.”
Pujji: Raised consulting rates to $2,500/hr with no drop in volume
“I went from 500 dollars an hour to a thousand dollars an hour to, I'm not kidding, 2500 dollars an hour. And I saw no drop off in volume.”
Pujji: His advisory firm charges PE clients $250,000 monthly for marketing diligence
“This private equity business we sell, you know, we're basically helping private equity firms assess companies' marketing capabilities, right? That's, and we charge a quarter million dollars a month for our services. It's a very high ticket item.”
Isenberg works seven days a week to prevent founder burnout
“I actually work every day. Like, seven days a week, I'm working some amount of time.”
Ellis: Migrating newsletter to beehiiv cut software expenses from $50k to $10k
“I was spending 50,000 a year on a different platform, and when this happened, I couldn't get in touch with anybody, and I've been with them... And we switched to them. We went from spending that much money to spending 10 K a year or something like that. And it…”
Rush puts micro-influencers on fixed 12-month retainers over one-off posts
“So I pay influencers fixed amount every month. And there is similar to partnership, like the football stars do with Nike, et cetera, but on a micro, on nano scale, right? So, and I pay them fixed money every month and they know it will be coming in whatever ha…”
Isenberg: Skool pays 40% lifetime affiliate revenue on $99/month subscriptions
“For example, you know, we host a lot of our communities on School. And School, which is actually Hermozzi's, one of Hermozzi and Sam Oven's business. We get 40% of lifetime revenue of the 99 dollars a month that people pay for it.”
Isenberg: An enterprise AI agency client is worth $1M to $2M
“So we actually have an agency called LCA that literally builds the biggest AI products out there. So we'll work with like a Dropbox and be like, Hey, let's go build like an AI first version of Dropbox or the Googles of the world, that sort of thing. So a clien…”
Facebook conversion ads generated craft-niche email leads for under $1 each
“Again, I, all I did was I ran Facebook ads with a conversion event. Like to shop to a Shopify store, right? I'm using the base theme, like the base theme that Shopify provides for this test. And we were getting like less than dollar emails, right?”
Courtney: AJ&Smart's top product generated up to $20M in revenue
“The most one of our products has ever made. We're just doing the calculations of it is like, 18 to twenty million dollars.”
Courtney: Mastermind advice led AJ&Smart to triple product price and sell out
“The current mastermind I'm in is actually one of the members of the, of Sam ovens mastermind, a guy called Blake Lagrange and the product we just launched the full stack facilitator. We wanted to launch this for 3000 or 4000 euro or something like that. 1:30 m…”
Courtney: AJ&Smart explored an acquisition with Andrew Wilkinson's team
“I've spoken to people about selling AJ and smart. I actually probably someone you also know, I was chatting with someone on Andrew Wilkinson's team.”
Kevin Rose will write a check to founders building retro TV hardware
“I would love to back someone that would be serious about creating this. Like I would write the check to make it happen.”
CoVenture: Targets cash-positive firms with $50M-$150M revenue for hybrid fund
“The perfect business for us does something between fifty and one hundred fifty million dollars of revenues. You know, they're cashflow positive. They do seven, eight figures of EBITDA. They're growing above 10, 15%, probably under 50%.”
Siu: Personal longevity practitioner billed $5,000, including a $2,800 supplement
“So, like, the last invoice I got was, like, 5000 dollars, and, like, one of the supplements alone was, like, 2800.”
Greg Isenberg's Team Creates One Experimental Product Per Month
“We're often creating one product per month, just as an experiment.”
Tiago Forte: Personal Net Worth Is Zero Due to Mortgage Debt
“If you don't include the business, like just include everything else, but the business, our net worth today, my wife and I in our late thirties is a big fat nothing. It's like our debts, which is we have no personal debt or credit card debt. It's just like our…”
Tiago Forte Walked Away From First Acquisition Due to Disastrous Financials
“In fact, I was just last week I was exploring a deal. My first one that I ever even sort of investigated and at,
On the surface, it looks so good, so compelling, and then as soon as I, like, talked to the broker, signed an NDA, got the actual financials, and i…”
Forte: Major Hollywood Agency Reached Out About Adapting Books for TV
“Someone from a, one of the big Hollywood agencies reached out to us.
[1485] Tiago Forte: I think if it wasn't for that, I have no contacts or network there.
[1489] Tiago Forte: I have no idea how to even get started.
[1492] Tiago Forte: It was the possibility …”
Kagan pre-sold $3,000 of a DocuSign alternative in 48 hours
“And so in 48 hours, I was able to sell 3000 dollars worth without using any social media or any of my email list. And in pre-sales to a DocuSign alternative for life, which will launch in 30 days on AppSumo.”
Kagan: AppSumo uses Howdy.com to hire vetted South American developers
“We use howdy.com. Have you seen them? So they give you, they hire South American developers and employees, but they do all the vetting and they just make it stupid easy for you to have full-time dedicated staff in an area. So we're on our absolute originals pr…”
Kagan reveals AppSumo's roster of fractional advisors from top tech companies
“Almost everyone in leadership gets a person. So Anna who runs people, we have Christine, who's the chief people officer from Duolingo. Moody Glasgow was the CMO of Zapier and Glassdoor. He does marketing. There's a guy named Colin Gardner. He does revenue. So …”
Kagan spent $1M in cash promoting AppSumo's expanded product catalog
“And then I decided to also spend a million dollars cash to promote that we have all these new products on AppSumo.”
Isenberg: Global water brand offered to co-pack his pet supplement
“I went on my first million. I pitched this idea from that pod. One of the largest water manufacturers, And water companies in the world reached out to me and said, if you can figure out what the formula is, I'll put it in the water, and we can, like, co-pack i…”
Bush: Their newsletters generate $300k annually, targeting $1M in 2024
“We're going to have paid newsletters as of right now that are 300 K a year between right with AI fiction writing, and then write your way to wealth. We want to build that to a million this year.”
Isenberg: Community Empire hit 20 new $100/mo signups in 24 hours
“Like we have a paid, you know, we call it a membership paid membership. That is like part paid newsletter, part community. And we charge a hundred dollars a month for it. And like, dude, we had 20 signups in the last 24 hours.”
Cole: Premium Ghostwriting Academy relies on one-to-many asynchronous coaching
“Well, the way PGA, for example, is structured is it's like a one-to-many. It's async curriculum, plus we have team members that specialize in different things to answer questions. So there's real-time support. We'll do like a weekly hot seat that's live. So th…”
Torenberg: I Want to Build 'Reference Checks as a Service'
“One business I want to build is reference checks as a service, right? We do all these reference checks, and yet no one ever compiles them or organizes them.”
Isenberg: Took $75k Salary and Zero for 12 Months at Islands
“When I was running islands, I paid myself a 75,000 dollar salary in San Francisco, which like goes nowhere. And in the last 12 months, I didn't even feel like I deserved a salary cause I wanted to extend the runway. So I stopped taking a salary.”
Isenberg: Late Checkout acquired 50% of BoringMarketing.com as first acquisition
“Another big win is we bought 50% of a business which became BoringMarketing.com, which is basically an AI enhanced SEO business, so it's some tools that help companies get organic search, and that was our first real acquisition.”
Isenberg: Late Checkout and all portfolio businesses were profitable in 2023
“The other big win was we produced nice cash flow for late checkout which is our holding company. And we continue to grow several cash flowing businesses, which is awesome. So the hold co made money, all the individual businesses made money.”
Isenberg says Late Checkout is actively acquiring community-based businesses
“So if you're selling your agency, your marketplace, your email newsletter, your vertical SaaS, your social network, get in touch with me. We're buying community-based businesses.”
Trends.vc uses its newsletter to split-test startup value propositions within hours
“We've often used the newsletter itself to sort of split test the value proposition because we know Within a matter of hours, which one resonates better? Whereas if that was a web split test and we threw that on the landing page, it could take weeks or months t…”
Newsletter business Trends.vc is actively building faceless YouTube channels
“That's another thing I'm thinking a lot about and we're actively pursuing right now.”
Jardon: Clipt founders refuse to monetize their YouTube content with ads
“The key part is we refuse to do ads.”
Jardon: Clipt was hidden from audiences because it was a 6/10 product
“Honestly, we haven't promoted Clipped our company in the past very much because we're like, it's kind of like a six out of 10 product right now. Like we're not proud enough to like promote it to our audience. We want to like go back and refine it, which is kin…”