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 17 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
Yaman: The 'founders eat last' mentality is antiquated
“Don't do the move of like founders eat last. I also think that's old and antiquated. Like you have to understand your worth.”
Yaman: Competing with Walmart and Amazon requires $2 billion and 10 years
“Don't try to compete with Walmart, Amazon, and Costco. That's, or if you're going to do that, you need to put Two billion dollars on the balance sheet and you need to make that like a 10 year journey.”
Yaman made under $10M in personal liquidity despite Boxed raising $380M
“Yeah, it was not the case.”
Yaman: Boxed went public via SPAC before it was fundamentally ready
“So we did go public via SPAC. So we were kind of in the public markets, maybe over our skis a little bit, not fully ready to be there, whether that's from a KPI standpoint, growth standpoint, or just fundamentals standpoint.”
Yaman: Boxed's collapse wasn't SVB's fault; would bank with them again
“Pretty impressive how SVB has turned it around. I would bank with them again, timing, you know, a lot of things come down to timing. So it was definitely not SVB's fault, but we were caught up.”
Yaman: CPG e-commerce removes merchandising risk compared to apparel
“The beauty of that was we're now not in charge of the merchandising. Like, you know, these, you know what a Cheerio is, you know, if you want it, you know, a Ziploc bag. So we essentially just focused on the fulfillment, laugh-mouth delivery and the customer e…”
Yaman: Boxed burned capital targeting idealized rather than actual customers
“I feel like we marketed towards the customer we wanted to be a boxed Customer versus the customer who actually was that creates marketing and efficiency.”
Yaman: A top-20 global retailer chose Spresso over Amazon and Rakuten
“We have a retailer, top-twenty retailer in the world. They looked at everything. They looked at using Amazon, Rakuten, local providers, in-house solution, and they chose the espresso solution because they did see that it's a superior software platform”
Yaman: Boxed couldn't beat Walmart on logistics, but could on tech
“We're not going to be able to out supply chain, out trucking, out logistics, out warehouse, you know, Walmart and Kroger and the major retailers in the U S especially with consumables, but we still feel like we can, you know, out technology them.”
Yaman: BlackRock held Boxed debt and facilitated the Spresso spinout
“So BlackRock had put in a debt instrument into the IPO process. BlackRock believed in the team. They believe the technology, the relationships that we have built. So working with our number one customer, right? We had to make sure they were on board. That's Eo…”
Yaman: Realistic enterprise SaaS valuation multiples are currently 6x to 7x ARR
“I would probably caution people that in our business, a certain type of business, the multiple is probably more in the six or seven range.”
Yaman: Boxed had exactly one profitable month during its entire history
“We did have a profitable month.”
Yaman: Boxed peaked at a 4% to 5% contribution margin
“If we were to hit a four to five percent contribution margin, that was a big win. And that was pushed by every, every lever we could possibly pull from vendor marketing.”
Yaman: Held low single-digit equity percentage at Boxed IPO
“When I, when we IPO'd, I was down as a startup or as a founder to single digit percents, low, low percent, single digit percentage”