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 48 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
Amazon made a critical error by competing against its third-party vendors
“I think platforms should be neutral. And so the idea that you compete with your vendors, to me, you've got a business needs to keep its, All of its major stakeholders happy. Yeah. And your vendors are one of your key stakeholders. If you don't treat them like …”
Limit industry veterans to one per team to prevent anti-innovation coalitions
“About 20%. We try to hire one out of every five or six people From the industry. We think we need that expertise. My principle is five or six people. Cause like most teams should have five or six people on it. And I want one person in the room has done it befo…”
Consumer electronics cannot be manufactured outside of Shenzhen and Guangdong
“There's not infrastructure and subcontractors and other vendors to make consumer electronics outside of the Shenzhen, Guangdong province. There's just not in, you can't go to another country.”
Entrepreneurial sales seeks conditional 'yes' answers to inform product roadmaps
“What entrepreneurial sales is very different than regular sales. You want to get to know as fast as you can. So you stop wasting your time and get to the next Yes. You want to get to know within five minutes ideally. Yeah. That's great if someone hangs up on y…”
Capturing 20% of global freight makes a company bigger than Saudi Aramco
“Our goal is to get to 20 or 40% market share. If you do that, you're the biggest company on planet earth. Like full stop, like bigger than Saudi Aramco.”
Business school is likely not worth $140,000 in student debt
“I think if you, having a business school degree has helped me immensely in understanding the principles of accounting and revenue recognition and all, you know, like real basic fundamentals, finance cap tables, discount rating, discounted cash flow. These are …”
Traditional freight forwarders exploit information asymmetry to overcharge their customers
“There's this information asymmetry and the forwarder global trade's kind of a black box and the freight forwarder knows how it works and you don't. And they use that against you. They use that to make money off you.”
Petersen: Flexport could only have been founded in Silicon Valley
“I think we, Flexport could only be founded in Silicon Valley. We'll see if that's true in 10 years from now, but I think that's still true today.”
Flexport's ideal hiring profile targets 'insecure overachievers'
“What we look for, we like Flexport has my COO, my business partner calls it insecure overachievers is our profile. We want people who are like really hungry, but humble and they want to prove something to the world and they're super smart, but they don't neces…”
Flexport reached $200 million in revenue without a marketing team
“Flexport got to two hundred million dollars in revenue without having a marketing team.”
Flexport surpassed FedEx to become the 17th largest global freight forwarder
“We are now, we last month we passed FedEx and panel Pina, which are, we're now number 17. Oh, out of about 20,000 freight forwarders in the world in four years.”
High user retention on terrible products proves strong underlying market demand
“If the product is this bad, and people are still using it, this is a good thing.”
Petersen: Founders rejected by investors should pivot to self-funding businesses
“Look, if no investors want to invest in your business, that's your fault. You should do a different business. Like, there's lots of businesses that don't need any investor money. Do that and then earn the credibility success compounds, like build up, you know,…”
Petersen: Flexport is first licensed US customs brokerage with modern web app
“We're the first licensed U.S. Customs brokerage built around a modern web application.”
Petersen: The world's largest oil company joined Flexport's waitlist
“The biggest oil company in the world signed up.”
Petersen: Customs brokerage provides full supply chain visibility to upsell logistics
“The brokerage is just the way that we enter the much larger logistics space, because once I'm your customs broker, I know everything about your supply chain.”
Petersen: No single company is large enough to own end-to-end freight
“In the freight world, because of the size, there's no company big enough to keep it in their own network from door to door. You would actually have to be the biggest company in the world by far.”
Petersen: Amazon operates roughly 400 undisclosed private-label brands
“They have like 400 different brands now that you don't even realize are Amazon.”
Petersen: Businesses must be the counterparty of choice across six stakeholders
“Your six stakeholders as a business or your customers who you pay you money, your vendors, your employees, your investors, Regulators and then the communities where you operate and you have, so you have six stakeholders and if you can keep all six of those, yo…”
Foxconn and Saudi Aramco signed up on Flexport's pre-launch prototype site
“And we got Foxconn signed up, makes, makes the iPhone, Cargill signed up like one of the biggest ad companies in the world. And then one day Saudi Aramco signed up the, National oil company of Saudi Arabia signed up for my fake website.”
Petersen: Decentralized recruiter pairings outperform specialized centralized recruiting teams
“I'd rather have an entrepreneur with a recruiter Paired up. We'll do better than like a totally specialized recruiting organization.”
Half of all global air cargo moves on passenger planes
“50% of all the air cargo in the world is actually moved on passenger planes in the belly of the passenger plane.”
Petersen: Academic research ranked freight forwarding as most susceptible to automation
“There's a great paper that I read about industries that are most susceptible to automation. And freight forwarding was the number one on the list. It was like, 99% of the work should be, that would be better done by software in this, like, academic paper.”
Petersen: Flexport offers trade finance loans secured by customer inventory
“We now have a business that makes loans to our customers trade finance Loans for any, anything? To buy inventory. Which we secure with the inventory.”
Petersen: Investors want founders who will succeed without them
“Also investors want to invest in things where they're like, this guy's going to do it with or without me. Like she's got this. I better invest now before she runs off and makes it, you know, and like leaves me behind.”
Petersen: U.S. customs brokers charge $100-$300 across 30M annual shipments
“Usually it's not dependent on the value of the goods, but it's like between a 103 hundred dollars per shipment, and there's thirty million shipments that enter the U.S. Every year and are filed with a customs customs entry.”
Petersen: Prior startup aggregated 300M U.S. shipping manifests for subscription sales
“Every time you import a product into the U.S., it's public record, that product, and my last company actually sells that data. We aggregate every time you import something. We've collected three hundred million of those shipping manifests and sell subscription…”
Petersen: Flexport serves about 2,000 merchants selling on Amazon
“So we have about 2000 merchants that sell on Amazon that use us.”
Petersen: About 10% of Flexport shipments go to Amazon warehouses
“Yeah, so probably about 10% of Flexport shipments get delivered to an Amazon warehouse.”
Petersen: Flexport waited three years for US Customs license approval
“March 31st of twenty-thirteen is when we were granted the license by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection, and so I started working on the idea in like twenty-ten. Flexport for the, there was three years there waiting for the gove…”
Flexport acquired its first customers via Google AdWords and SEO
“The earliest customers for Flexport we got via Google AdWords and SEO and just signups and people just finding us on the internet, signing up for the service.”
Flexport operates its own dedicated Boeing 747 cargo plane
“We have a seven 47. We have our own plane.”
Global logistics accounts for roughly 12% of the world's GDP
“It's literally logistics is 12% of global GDP. 12% of every dollar made by every person on planet earth. This goes into logistics”
Flexport took five years to generate its first dollar of revenue
“Now it took five years from the first time I had the idea to the first dollar of revenue was five years, four years of which it was just me and no other employees.”
Petersen: Only 2% of Flexport Shipments Were Hit by First China Tariffs
“It was only about two percent of our shipments were affected by the first round of tariffs.”
Petersen: Air Freight Is on Average 5x More Expensive Than Ocean Freight
“Air freight on average, about five times more expensive than ocean freight.”
Petersen: Flexport Has Roughly 3,000 Paying Customers (August 2018)
“We have like about 3000 paying customers now.”
Petersen: Flexport is 95% to 98% outbound sales
“Flexport is a 98% outbound sales. Maybe it's 95% outbound sales model.”
Petersen: The largest global freight forwarder has only 2% market share
“Now, the largest in the world only has two percent market share.”
Petersen: Obtaining customs brokerage license took Flexport years
“It took us years to get the license.”
Petersen: Importing goods can require filing up to 120 different forms
“Based on what the product is, there could be, like, a 120 different forms you have to file, so we have to take the, what the product is, determine which forms are needed, fill those out for the, ah, customer, file them electronically with the government.”
Petersen: Flexport employs licensed customs brokers rather than removing humans
“We're not removing the human elements, so we're pairing you with a licensed customs worker. We have customs workers on staff, and it's more of a communications tool to, like, enable it.”
Petersen: Flexport has a waiting list of about 300 companies
“Yeah, we're trying, we actually have a waiting list of like, 300.”
Petersen: US customs rules blocked centralized software clearance before 2007
“And actually until recently it wasn't possible to clear shipment except at your local port. So if you built a software startup to do this, you could only help people importing into the port of Oakland, unless you had an office in every port. In 2007.”
Petersen: Flexport expects roughly 75% gross margins per clearance
“The gross margin should be about 75%.”
Petersen: Imported Electric Scooters 15 Years Before the Modern Craze
“The scooter mania that's happening now is so fascinating for me because 15 years ago, my brother and I and our other business partner, Michael Kenko, we were importing electric scooters, almost the same form factor, similar price point.”
Petersen sold his Amazon stock right before it 4x'd to buy a house
“I sold my Amazon stock two years ago when I bought a house, and I literally, I was crying out. Maybe not literally, but I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever done. Why am I selling this stock? My house is up 10%, and my Amazon, Amazon's up like four …”