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 407 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
Metzer: Running Injury Rates Unchanged in 50 Years Despite Footwear Changes
“The thing about running-related injury and the rate of injury, it hasn't changed for 50 years, it hasn't improved. It doesn't matter what shoes are running in, and so ultimately what we've learned The shoe can have a small impact, the materials of the shoe, an…”
Doherty: At $21M post, 30x return requires up to $1.2B exit
“I think like just doing some back, back of the napkin math on a 21 post to hit like our Outcome goals. There'd have to be at least a six hundred million dollar exit with no additional financing. And as you mentioned, like one of the things that you're looking …”
Hudson: Grooming Businesses Exit at 2x to 3x Top-Line Revenue
“My big takeaway is these businesses tend to trade at two to three times top line revenue at the end of the day, and so for me the big question Isn't how do you get to 50, it's how do you get to two to 300.”
Burton: Physical Municipal Hardware Is Hard to Disrupt Once Installed
“Anything that's hard to do is hard to disrupt. And there's a lot of SaaS and AI going on in the market right now, and for us, it's like, once we have a hardware component there, it's very difficult to remove, just because the city doesn't want to have to make …”
Middleton: Never Accept an Advisor Who Could Be an Investor
“My rule of thumb is don't let anybody be an advisor who can otherwise be an investor.”
Robbins: Most businesses currently fundraising probably shouldn't raise capital
“I actually think most people probably shouldn't fundraise. I think most businesses that are fundraising probably shouldn't fundraise.”
Al Bsharah: Active founders should hold four investor conversations every few days
“You should be having four conversations every couple of days, if not every day.”
Hardware startups need at least two seed rounds for meaningful traction
“So I always assume that there's going to be at a minimum two seed rounds for a hardware company to actually get to a place where there's meaningful traction.”
Tobias: Startups in foreign countries backed only by US VCs raise concerns
“I get a little concerned when I see only US VCs in an, in a foreign country.”
Charles Hudson: The winning playbook in vertical SaaS is building full stack
“The money in vertical sass is full stack. Like, that's the playbook, like, you do it all.”
Yin: The core idea and tailored messaging matter more than pitch execution
“Well, I think my challenge is I fund so many companies with terrible pitches that it's actually only partly the pitch, but also the actual idea and the messaging again catered towards the right investor is what matters more.”
Stahl: Revenue multiples are inappropriate for valuing seed-stage startups
“I think revenue multiples for a seed round is too early. That's more of a series A conversation.”
Jillian Manus: Founders should stay silent if they don't know an answer
“Every founder should know, don't say anything. If you don't know something, don't say anything.”
Hudson: Investors lose money backing product directions founders aren't focused on
“A good way to lose money as an investor is to fall in love with something that the founder is not as focused on as you are. So for me personally, I'm out”
Yin: Consumer startups need hundreds of thousands of users for seed rounds
“The expectation when you go out and raise that seed is in the hundreds of thousands of users at a minimum.”
Smith: Organic monocropping strips soil and does not guarantee soil health
“You can be an organic farmer and plant the same crops year after year after year, and that is stripping the soil. Just because you're organic doesn't mean you're focused on soil health.”
Yin: DTC builds early CPG data, but scale requires retail wins
“Direct to consumer is good for getting started and getting data. It's good for you to be able to then Take this data and go to Whole Foods and say, look, this is your audience, and these are the numbers I'm doing. But from a scale perspective, you have to be a…”
Hudson: Charge operators' demand for single software aggregators creates massive lock-in
“I don't believe these charge operators want five different software systems. They're gonna pick one. And if he can make it work, he has a chance to be an early winner and lock up a bunch of distribution that will be very difficult, if not impossible, for someo…”
Elizabeth Yin: Cold emails really do work for startup fundraising
“No, cold emails really do work. Not everyone will respond, but I think you will get some bites.”
Rushing into equal co-founder partnerships after brief dating is horrible
“The worst are the people who, like, think that you have to, and they do, like, two weeks of founder dating, and, you know, then become equal partners. It's horrible.”
Hedges: Strict PPP rules prevent relief loans from extending startup runway
“Because of the rules around how you have to use it in the time period you have to use it, it's not free money, and it's not money that is like an extra cushion.”
Schmorak: Securing PPP loans signaled solvency and execution to investors
“What it is, it's a demonstration of how solvent your business is. It's like, can you get your together enough to apply for this program in short order and have your finances in good shape so that you can like, just do better for your business. They put it in t…”
Downey: Consumers claim they prefer American-made goods but ultimately buy on price
“A lot of people say, buy American, you know, build in America, but then when it comes time to buy a product, like, They're gonna buy based on price, and like, you have to figure out, you have to figure out what you're willing to do around that.”
Hudson: Mortgage lenders' desire to digitize exceeds their ability to adopt tech
“And these customers, their desire to digitize, at least what I've seen, is much greater than their ability to digest New technology, particularly on the workflow side.”
Hussain claims investors only care about numbers, not his personality
“Being honest, they don't give a about my personality, about who I am, they give a about my numbers. And whether I'm a good investment at the end of the day.”
Hussain says the word 'pivot' is nails on a chalkboard to VCs
“As soon as you use the word pivot, it's like, A record stopping. It's like, you know, nails on a chalkboard, because a lot of companies have not done very well with pivots.”
Goldberg: Digital sizing surveys fail to overcome trust issues for premium apparel
“And what we found is a lot of great brands out there, but when you're talking about a product that's, I don't know, 500 dollars, 700 dollars, maybe even a thousand dollars. That little extra convenience of being able to fill out a survey in someone's home didn…”
Nadel: Keeping two-sided platforms free accelerates scale and enables sponsorship revenue
“You know, both sides, if both sides are free, you'll get to scale more quickly, and that'll enable you to generate the leads, and to generate more sponsorship revenue, and those kinds of things. But you need scale.”
Manus: Platforms must either be completely free or charge a considerable fee
“Sometimes that middle point is the worst point. One dollar, maybe, I mean, one dollar seems ridiculous. It's just not right. You either do free, or you do something considerable.”
Manus: Startups building alongside an anchor partner often get acquired by them
“A lot of these companies, I have two right now, they have an anchor, they're building it out, and that anchor's going to buy them.”
Mohnot: External CEOs are red flags for pre-seed startups
“External CEO also is a red flag for me. At this stage in the company, a pre-seed company, a founder should probably be CEO.”
Hudson: Competing with cash-rich incumbents requires organic, bottoms-up community
“The only way you can really compete with them is to just play a different game, which is organic, bottoms-up community.”
Mohnot: Invest equity for 20x upside, otherwise use revenue-based financing
“Are you gonna make twenty-x your money? Then make an investment, equity investment. If not, revenue-based financing.”
Charles Hudson argues that automating virtual assistant services degrades the customer experience
“The more automated the experience, the shittier the service was for me as a customer.”
Why Generic Blue-Collar Labor Marketplaces Always Fail
“Everyone who's tried to do generic blue collar has failed because a roofer, a plumber, and a restaurant worker are all blue collar workers, but they make radically different amounts of money.”
Hudson: Conversation platforms fail from esoteric content or difficult monetization
“Every time I've gotten excited about a platform that's fundamentally about conversations, whether it was Whale, AMA on Reddit, Quora, it breaks somehow. Either the conversations become so long-tailed and esoteric that they can't build an audience, or the monet…”
Downey: Good salespeople sell things customers don't need or that don't exist
“Part of what makes someone a good salesperson is they can sell you things that you don't need or that don't exist.”
Orion Brown: Minority-focused startups will always be told they are too niche
“Niche is the first thing you're gonna hear when you're focusing on particularly minority customers.”
Hudson: Music startups are nearly impossible to fund due to licensing
“It's basically impossible, as you probably know, it's basically impossible to raise money For anything in music, because generally you get stuck in the morass of licensing and the labels”
Schmorak: A startup derailing over a two-month leave is probably not a good company
“So if the company is going to derail or the fundraising situations is going to derail because someone takes two months off Because they're having a baby, like, it's probably not a good company.”
Schmorak: Working 80-hour weeks is not required to build a great company
“No, I just don't think it's required. I don't think it's required for people to work 80 hour weeks to build a great company, and.”
Hudson: Valuation gaps bigger than 50% between founders and VCs rarely close
“And personally, I've just found when you have a wide valuation gap between expectations on both sides, I personally have never
Been successful at closing gaps that are bigger than about 50%.
It just, it requires too much movement from one party, probably to a …”
Michael Hyatt says nonprofits should act like businesses and generate profit
“I can tell you that a lot of, you know, nonprofits should act more like businesses and figure out how to make it profitable so they can do more like what you're saying.”
Jillian Manus says nonprofits fail to scale because constant fundraising derails missions
“A non-profit, many of them have difficulty scaling, obviously sustainability issues, I know so many organizations that I give money to, they don't have the metrics, they're unable to sustain themselves, and they'll get halfway through their mission, and then t…”
Daniel Galati: Making money in VC requires being non-consensus and right
“You know, I think the only way to make money in VC is to take a non-consensus view that turns out to be right.”
Brandel: Capital Markets Force Founders into a False Profit-or-Mission Binary
“Our problem, I think, is that the capital structures are set up to be either or. Either you're for maximized shareholder profit, Or maximize mission. And I think most founders actually are somewhere in between on the spectrum, but they're pushed to one side or…”
Brandel: Zebra startups must prioritize revenue over user growth from day one
“Well, it means you have to focus on revenue first and foremost, which means you can't just say, oh, we have this grand vision, and once we reach 10,000 users or whatever, then we can turn on the money machine, or we're gonna be ad supported, or, you know, it's…”