The Ledger
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Bill Smith: Shipt and Landing would have failed if launched two years later
“The timing of everything that I created, if you just rolled it forward two years, it wouldn't have worked. In, InSight wouldn't have worked. Shipt would have missed, completely missed the window. Even landing, we would have missed the window because there's ju…”
Graycroft pushed Smith to consider not selling Shipt to Target
“My partner there really pushed me to consider not selling. He said, look, I'm going to do whatever you want to do. I mean, you're the CEO and, you know, whatever you want to do, we're with you.”
Smith personally wired funds to cover Shipt payroll before Series B
“So I remember we were working on closing the B And we literally ran out of money to make payroll, and I had to fund it, you know, personally. I had to wire money in from my own bank account to cover payroll to get us through.”
Smith: Absorbing acquired startups and stripping their identity often leads to failure
“Some companies can do an acquisition, and they will absorb the company they're acquiring, and integrate it in, and you kind of lose your identity, and a lot of times these acquisitions become failed acquisitions.”
Smith: Target acquired Shipt in an all-cash deal exceeding $550M
“Five hundred and fifty million dollars is actually a little more than that. That was on the table and an all cash deal.”
Smith: Green Dot acquired prepaid card startup Insight for eight figures
“I can tell you it was in the eight digit range. So it was big. So I thought, man, this could be cool. And we ended up selling to them.”
Smith: Daydreaming about payouts distracts founders and kills acquisition deals
“Whenever I've sold a business, they never happen fast. It is very easy to get distracted and excited and thinking about what you're going to do with your millions. But if you take your eye off the ball, And the numbers turn or something changes. It's game over…”
Smith invested $1 million of his own money to launch Shipt
“I invested probably a million dollars total to get to this point.”
Smith: Shipt Presold 1,000 Memberships in 4 Weeks Before Building App
“My goal was to sell a thousand. I think within three weeks we had sold 750 or something like that. A week later we were at a thousand and that's when we stopped sales.”
Smith: Instacart Raised ~$250M Before Shipt Opened
“So at the time there was a company called Instacart. They had raised something like two hundred and fifty million dollars before shipped was even open.”
Smith: Shipt grew roughly 300% in its second and third years
“I mean, it was, it probably grew 300% the second year, and 300% the third year.”