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 22 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
Leber: Building SaaS entirely dependent on third-party platforms is fatally dangerous
“Building a SaaS company on the back of another platform that could kill you is a very dangerous thing to do. And my million run rate business died, but I've, you know, there are 10,000,020 million run rate businesses that also died. Same fate, building on the …”
Leber: Twitter suspended thousands of Vitamin's accounts overnight in May 2016
“So May 2920 16. We literally had zeros across our dashboard on the back end looking at all the accounts, and I thought, oh, man, something must be wrong with the dashboard, because there's just no way we could have lost thousands of accounts overnight, and it …”
Leber: Early-stage growth marketing cannot be automated
“The learning there about six months in was early stage companies are so needy that that's not really a thing. It has to be a custom build every time across the entire spectrum because they don't know their early stage company, you think about 500 K to a millio…”
Leber: Vitamin spends zero on outbound marketing, using its own software
“We use our own technology on ourselves so we don't have to Spend on marketing, so to speak. I mean, it's all our own software. So we do not spend on outbound marketing at all.”
Leber: Vitamin burned its remaining $70K runway in 3.5 weeks
“We had raised about 650 and we had gotten just that month. We got into cashflow positive by about a hundred dollars. So I was like, Hey, this is great. I'm going to go out and fundraise like this. You know, arms crossed instead of like this with hands outstret…”
Leber: Twitter cut automation tolerance by 80% to 200 actions daily
“It took longer than three weeks to figure out that it was a reduction in the automation threshold. It went from a thousand actions per day down to about 200 per day. So they did an 80% reduction in their tolerance.”
Leber: Unicoin Gold raised $31M and 6-7x'd on exchanges
“Unicoin Gold did a thirty one million dollar token sale. And once they hit the exchanges that did a six or seven X”
Leber: Vitamin launched with manual 'Wizard of Oz' operations
“As most SaaS companies, we, we've had some Wizard of Oz to get started where you got a man behind the curtain that's turning the wheels a little bit to get started.”
Leber: Social media platforms fail at sharing future plans and data
“Social media doesn't do a very good job sharing future data.”
Leber: GonnaBe's former iOS developer became Snapchat employee number 17
“My iOS developer, who's a brilliant guy, got snapped away from me by Snapchat. This was two and a half years ago, so that would make him employee number 17 at Snapchat. And now he's the lead of the iOS team over there.”
Leber: Vitamin's Monthly Gross Churn Is Around 4%
“Gross churn about four percent monthly right now.”
Leber: Vitamin suffered 21% monthly gross churn before product-market fit
“And once upon a time it was 21% monthly gross churn.”
Vitamin raised $650k on a SAFE note from LA investors
“We raised 650,000 last year on a safe note from local Los Angeles investors, mostly.”
Leber: Vitamin grows revenue 18% and users 20-25% month over month
“Yeah, revenue is around 18% month over month, and then our user base itself is more like 20, 25% month over month.”
Leber: Vitamin's basic software package starts at $1,000 per month
“It is a thousand dollar a month service at the most basic package, and then it goes up from there if you want deeper features or more traffic.”
Leber exhausted his life savings keeping GonnaBe alive for two years
“We raised to 250 K and that lasted us about a year and a half, two years, because I also exhausted my life savings.”
Leber: Rebuilt lost startup savings by consulting for ad agencies
“I took a year and consulted back in the agency world, don't call me a whore, but I did kind of whore myself out there, and I was able to make back a lot of the money that I lost.”
Leber: Vitamin maintains headcount costs around $10,000 monthly per employee
“But it's right around 10 K per head, which is if you read all the smartest of the smart, I think Fred Wilson is the one who's made it popular that that's the benchmark to keep 10 K per head. And you're running an efficient business.”
Leber: Pulled six all-nighters in six weeks while fundraising for Vitamin
“And in fact, when we were raising money, I would, I did six all nighters in six weeks. So it averaged one per week, literally stay up all night work. The sun comes up, you go through your whole day and you go to bed at 11 o'clock the next night.”