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 30 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
Walling: Google will see its biggest revenue drop ever due to AI
“So my sixth prediction is that Google will see its biggest ever drop in revenue Due to the transition from 10 blue links being the prominent way people search into AI ads, and I think Google's gonna have a bit of time that they're gonna need to figure it out”
Walling: Twitter will be acquired at a deep discount in 2024
“The second prediction I want to touch on is I predicted that Twitter changes hands in twenty-twenty-four, question mark? And I don't know about you, but does it feel like the writing's on the wall? That Twitter is gonna be snapped up by someone at a deep disco…”
Walling: Twitter (X) will change ownership in 2024
“I think that Twitter might change hands again in 20, 24. That is probably the ultimate prediction.”
Asynchronous organizations operate with 50% thinner management than on-premise competitors
“One of the interesting, the most interesting factoids that I found in my research for this book on asynchronous organizations is I found that the managerial level inside of asynchronous organizations is 50% thinner than their on-premise counterparts.”
Taber predicts definitive proof of extraterrestrial life will be discovered
“My fifth and final prediction here is that we will discover definitive proof of extraterrestrial life. I don't know what exact form that's going to take, whether it's going to be Mars or some comment or, you know, an asteroid going by, but that's the predictio…”
Vollset: Public SaaS Price-to-Revenue Multiples Are Below Industrials
“Despite growing significantly faster and being, you know, significantly higher profits, the sort of price to revenue multiples of SaaS companies is actually less than industrials now”
Vollset claims Australia's social media ban requires ID for internet access
“And the answer is apparently that they're going to require all Australians to provide identification, to go, to access the internet.”
Walling predicts Stripe will finally go public in 2024
“My seventh and final prediction for twenty-twenty-four, I have no inside information. I think Stripe's going to finally go public.”
Walling: TinySeed is the only year-long accelerator program
“No one else does a year-long accelerator program, right? And we do that.”
Psychometric testing shows introversion strongly predicts remote employee retention
“When we look at the psychometric testing as it applies to remote work, introversion is one of the best success factors that leads to longer retention rates throughout an organization.”
Walling: 80% to 90% of VC Goes to Harvard or Stanford Alumni
“There was a study published in, and I forget the exact numbers, but it was like, 80% of venture capital, it might even be 90% of venture capital in any given year goes to people who have attended Harvard or Stanford.”
Walling: 80% to 90% of VC goes to Harvard or Stanford alumni
“In fact, I saw a number somewhere and it was about, it was like 80% or 90% of venture capital goes to someone who graduated from Harvard or Stanford, or at least someone who attended one of those schools.”
Only 3% of successful SaaS founders find ideas through online research
“When we've surveyed entrepreneurs who have businesses with revenue, SaaS businesses, it's only three percent of them that say they found their idea through, like, online research and forums. It is three out of a hundred.”
Coburn: Over 30% of 65-Year-Olds Return to Work After Retiring
“Over 30% of 65 year olds are going back to work because they don't enjoy just not doing anything, not contributing, not feeling useful, not connecting with other people.”
Voje: A Company Acquired 200,000 Users Through Programmatic SEO
“Tomorrow I'm publishing how a company got 200 K users to just, for just like programmatic SEO.”
Walling: Stripe will go public in 2025
“My third prediction carried over from last year is that Stripe will go public in 2025.”
Bush: The majority of Slack's expenses still go toward sales and marketing
“If you still look at the P and L majority of their expenses are still going towards marketing and sales, which is fascinating to kind of see that.”
Average Facebook organic impression rate fell to 0.09% by early 2021
“Today, the average, average impression rate for an organic update on Facebook is 0.09%.”
Gal predicts Drip will target high-end enterprise sales after Leadpages sale
“I'm going to assume they're going to go high end with an enterprise sales team and run that playbook, and now they have the money to do it, and they didn't need to sell any equity in it.”
Duhigg: Callers over-enunciate by 20% and add 33% more emotion
“When we're talking to someone on the phone and we can't see them, we over enunciate our words by about 15 or 20%. We put about a third more emotion into our voice because we know the other person can't see our facial expressions.”
Walling: Roughly 85% of bootstrapped SaaS companies have one or two founders
“I forget if it's like 70% of mostly bootstrap SaaS. Are single founders. It's like a huge chunk. And then another like, 15 plus percent is two founder companies. And that's just the most common. I mean, that's like the 85, that's the lion's share, right? 85%.”
Walling: Upfront credit card requirements for SaaS trials fell to 71%
“And the findings are that the asking for a credit card upfront has increased and then decreased again. So the first year it was 73%, asked for credit card upfront, then it went up to 78%. 78% in the next one, and it's down this year to 71%.”
Orangio: SMB-targeting SaaS companies average 12% monthly growth in recent survey
“So if you were targeting small businesses, your average growth rate probably looked around like 12% month over month.”
Stritus reached $50K MRR in one week by leveraging an existing audience
“Steven Craven and he told his founder story, him and his co-founder story of going from launch To 50 K of MRR in a week, and they had an existing audience. The company's called Stritus, and it's software for personal trainers.”
Walling: Mid-2023 Startup Funding and M&A Rebounding Above 2022 Levels
“We're seeing the stock market recover. We're seeing some M&A activity start to reemerge. Funding rounds are getting closed just a bit more. It's not like 20, 21, but it's better than 20, 22.”
Black Hops doubled revenue yearly for six years, reaching profitability
“In the 12 months of 2020, we grew by 100%, which we'd done every year the previous six years. So we maintained our really high growth, which is tough with the physical products business. We became profitable and very comfortably profitable.”
Rob Walling says Drip's trademark application was rejected as too generic
“We applied and got rejected. They said it's too, they're like, it's too generic, you know, that Drip email is a thing that's existed for the prior art, is what they said.”
Walling: HubSpot began as a website builder with integrated Google Analytics
“HubSpot, it was a website builder with Google analytics built into it. You know, it was very simple. And then they're like, now we're going to add SEO tools. Now we're going to add a CRM.”
Walling: Startups For the Rest of Us hasn't missed a week in 13 years
“The only reason that I ship this show every week still, 13 years in, 650 something episodes, not the only reason, but a main reason that I don't miss a week is because I haven't missed a week.”
Castro: U.S. live events industry generates $6B annually
“The live events industry is one that brings in, like, six billion dollars a year annually just in the U.S., and so, like, you just imagine all of those different staff members that are not working right now, and it's just, it's pretty devastating.”