The Ledger
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Hudson: Discovery-only platforms fail without deep payment and workflow integration
“And I was going to say, the other thing that most of the really good Booking platforms you've been a part of, they get somehow involved in the workflow, whether it's collection of payments, you know, collection of information about the people, actual execution…”
Hudson: Founders obsessed with CAC details usually run paid acquisition machines
“When I find people who know tons and tons and every detailed number about cost of acquisition, and I'm like, oh, you are a paid acquisition machine, and I actually don't like those businesses personally.”
Hyatt: One-on-one tutoring is an inefficient service model professionals want to escape
“You are still A one-on-one where the other person has to consume, ah, their person hours times rate, which is back to a service model, which is an inefficient model that lawyers and accountants and everybody else are desperate to get out of.”
Hudson: Most failed VR apps were not actually better in VR than 2D
“And the one thing I've learned about VR is I think there's a lot of apps that have been unsuccessful because they're actually not better in VR. They're actually better in any other medium in the real world, two D, whatever it might be. Having seen the demo, th…”
Mohnot: Seed-stage founders do not need growth marketing skills in-house
“Like she can hire a growth marketer. That's, I don't think that like, I don't think she needs that skill set as a co, as a co-founder. Like this is, I mean, this is a seed deal.”
Freese: Lack of patents does not preclude business defensibility
“Well, I don't think that having no patent means that there's no defensibility.”
Stanton: People take care of loved ones and pets better than themselves
“My working assumption, people will take care of those they love better than themselves.”
Hudson: Food products lack defensibility outside of emotional brand connection
“I mean, I think in food there isn't much defensibility, like McDonald's and Burger King both sell hamburgers and like, I think it comes down to like, do you connect with a brand that makes you feel like this is the, like, look, I'm in this, I drink this brand …”
Dominguez: Disliking appearance is the primary reason people avoid video chat
“Because the number one reason why people don't video chat is because they don't like the way that they look. So if you can change that that allows more and more people to share video, to talk on video, et cetera.”
Hudson: A single shipping API becomes more valuable as logistics complexity grows
“Having one single API for this stuff, it becomes way more valuable over time because logistics just gets more complex.”
Manus: Working mothers are more efficient because parenting forces strict time management
“I think, I actually think people who have children use their time more wisely, women who do, because they really have to. They don't have a choice. And so I really find that time management, interesting enough, for working mothers is Is more efficient. They wo…”
Nadel: Early-stage consumer beverage brands should launch exclusively direct-to-consumer
“I'd rather her build the brand organically, just DDC, just online, selling it direct, and work with influencers online to build the brand and to get traction and get like a real core following of people who are buying a direct consumer where you have really hi…”
Gulati: Selling equity puts founders on the hook for a full exit
“Once you sell a part of your company, you're kind of on the hook to sell the whole company.”
Nadel: Per-App Telecom Models Inevitably Attract Margin-Eroding Power Users
“Over time, this kind of model tends to gravitate towards more power users, right? It's a great service and power users will gravitate towards it. And so the use case becomes more power users.”
Gulati: Business model innovation creates more value than tech innovation
“Just at a high level, I think more than product innovation, more than technology innovation, business model innovation is like the true value creator in like in tech, right? And in, in business more generally.”
Gulati: DTC brands cannot be continuously iterated like software
“To be a true billion dollar direct consumer brand, like the brand has to resonate and brand isn't one of those things you can necessarily iterate on. I don't believe, like, I think The consumer thinks what they think of you, and I think you can evolve a brand …”
Jillian Manus argues business is built on relationships, not product quality
“I don't care how good your product is. Because that's not what business is built on. Business is built on relationships. That's what business is built on.”
Salhi: Millennials buy vinyl because digital music lacks tangibility
“Millennials are buying vinyls like crazy. Why? Because they never see and touch the content they have and they love.”
Phil Nadel: VCs are much better if they were entrepreneurs first
“I just think that venture capitalists are so much better At their job if they've been entrepreneurs themselves.”
Chapman: Many great businesses are initially built by exploiting system loopholes
“I think a lot of great businesses have been built on the back of hacks, right? Sort of taking advantage of loopholes in the system.”
Manus: Coffee shop communities form around the destination, not the coffee
“There's community formed in coffee shops organically, but I think, and I might be wrong, that's really not around the coffee, but it's around just the place, the destination.”
Manus: Gym-first adoption beats direct-to-consumer for fitness hardware
“I think they're doing it the right way, where they have the gym marketing dollars behind them, and the adoption will be in the gym, and then they can expand it into at home.”
Diamond: Customer LOIs are meaningless without signed contracts
“Like, to me, LOIs are, I mean, those are, that's bullshit.”
Diamond: Bridge Rounds Include High-Performing Outliers, Not Just Distressed Startups
“There was a negative stigma attached to the term bridge, and now people are calling it post seed, seed extension, whatever. C two. There are companies that are in these bridge rounds that are distressed companies that are looking for an influx of capital to he…”
Manus: Early-stage investors act as startup co-founders
“I always tell founders that early stage investors are actually co-founders.”
Mohnot: Managing low-wage logistics labor is more complex than founders expect
“I just think the operational stuff, it's always more complex than you think, and I'm saying that because I, I've been through it personally, and people that are gonna work for you for 20 bucks an hour, driving or whatever, like, there's gonna be days where the…”
Manus: The most ridiculous startup ideas often become the best businesses
“You know, one person said to me that the businesses that you roll your eyes at, right, are the ones that ultimately are the best. The people that have the most ridiculous ideas are the ones that you should pay attention to the most.”
Candee: Startups with 18-month runways cannot spend six months training employees
“We don't have six months to teach someone to get up to speed when an average fundraise gives you 18 months of runway to try to get to, you know, profitability.”
Candee: Startups should use PPP to restructure, not just delay layoffs
“For us, it felt more important and more of the right thing to do to not just maintain the team during the PPP period and then Make cuts after that, but to really think about how this can be a lifeline into the future, and how we can have a team through the PPP…”
Bokoff: Hardest-to-understand concepts are often the biggest opportunities
“The thing that people have the hardest time connecting the dots to is often the biggest opportunity. And I, you know, I would stick by that.”
Josh Muccio: Humans in the loop can become a defensible software moat
“I get it's really easy if it's just pure software because it just scales easier, but also having humans in the process can also become a moat.”
Desai: Optimism is believing your startup works, not claiming to beat Epic
“Optimism is not fantasy. Optimism is, yes, it's going to work out. It's not, I'm going to be larger than epic. That's just fantasy.”
Bannister: Early Founders Benefit More From Admitting Unknowns Than Overpreparing
“Now, I found that when people are getting a lot of no's, they over prepare, and so she's spending a lot of time to be really, really, really ready. But I guarantee you that her peers are not. And so a little bit of that sort of winging it, I know that sounds c…”
Elizabeth Yin: D2C admissions platforms face severe structural churn upon graduation
“I think, for me, one of the things that I don't like about the mechanics of this model is there's constant churn with the direct-to-consumer model, right? And it's like, you graduate, okay, I no longer need this, and then now you have to go and get the next co…”
Elizabeth Yin: Education and credentialing should be separated into distinct problems
“I think the issue is, what are we trying to solve? Are we trying to solve education or are we trying to solve credentialing? I actually think the two should be separate.”
Conwell: Breakthrough brewing processes come from industry outsiders, not incumbents
“The process you develop is only gonna come from somebody who's not in the beer industry. Like, somebody in the beer industry who wouldn't even ever think to try what you did to create what you did, because it doesn't, it probably doesn't make sense to them.”
Yin: Running a scaled company is easier than struggling at seed stage
“It's actually way easier to run a company with product market fit at a high level than it is to just hit your head against class on something that's not working at seed stage.”
Conwell: Investors over-index on bombastic founders over measured operators
“People tend to over index on the bombastic founder and less on the more measured. And sometimes the more measured founder is the one who's going to be the better operator.”
Yin: Food is among the most lucrative non-VC categories
“But actually, I think of all the sort of non-VC categories, whether it's hardware, e-commerce, or all these other things, I think food is actually one of the most lucrative. Just people eat and drink so much stuff.”
Yin: 18 to 24 months of runway is unrealistic for e-commerce startups
“I mean, I think if we're going to be realistic for e-commerce It's really hard to get to 18 to 24 months. I don't have any e-commerce founders in that boat.”
Conwell: Shuttering DTC removes the primary marketing tool for ingredient licensing
“The reason is the D to C side is just the marketing. So if you get rid of the DTC brand, you've now taken away your largest marketing tool for the industry.”
Unger: Outcome-focused AI businesses will out-invest software-only competitors
“I'm bullish on AI for professional services, but I'm also bullish on what I said as a thesis, right, to sell the outcome, not the software, because the more revenue you can generate as a company, the more you can invest in growth, and I think that's, unless yo…”
Yin: Analytics SaaS retains customers better than marketing tech despite poor results
“I love sort of interesting analytics plays because retention is pretty high in that you are not judged based on performance, unlike marketing tech or sales tech or any of that, like you're tied to performance except for analytics, right? Nobody gets rid of Goo…”
Rose: The franchise industry will not welcome founders from outside
“Because frankly, if they're not, franchise industry won't welcome them.”
Ghai: Neurodivergent minds create the perfect storm for founding a company
“I think that it is the perfect storm to be able to start your own company, because our brains are built to do what has never been done before, to think in a way that no one has ever thought before. It is a perfect opportunity to utilize those skills to create …”
Jillian Manus says companies can sell anything to a fanatical market
“And it just showed me that if you have a fanatical market, you could sell them anything.”
Wenger: Venture-Scale Communities Have to Be Motivated by Money
“I think ultimately like that community has to be excited about money in some way. Otherwise I go to nonprofit. I go to working with government. I go to you being an amazing, brilliant content creator and having your own business as yourself versus like a ventu…”