Basic, lesson 1 of 3
Judging founders
At seed, the team is most of the bet. Look for evidence of speed, learning, and the ability to recruit, and check it with people the founders did not pick.
10 min, 3 checks
1What to look for
| Trait | Evidence you can collect | Weak substitute |
|---|---|---|
| Founder market fit | Years inside the problem, a network of buyers, a technical edge | Interest in the space |
| Speed | Versions shipped and customers signed in the last 90 days | A detailed roadmap |
| Learning | What they believed six months ago that turned out wrong | Confidence in every answer |
| Recruiting | Strong people who left good jobs to join, and why | A list of advisors |
| Selling | Customers or investors they closed themselves | A polished deck |
Cofounder dynamics matter as much as individuals. Ask how they met, how they split equity and why, who decides what, and about a time they disagreed. A very uneven split between two full time founders, or cofounders who met recently, is a question to answer, not an automatic pass.
Check 1
Which is the best evidence that a founder can recruit?
2References on and off the list
On list references are people the founder suggests. They will be positive, so ask for specifics: a time the founder handled bad news, how they hire, whether the reference would work for them again. Off list (back channel) references are people you find yourself: former colleagues, customers, investors who passed. They are where real signal comes from.
Worked example
Reading eight references
- 1Three on list, five off list.
- 2All three on list are glowing. Three of the five off list independently say the founder struggles to delegate.
- 3Three of eight overall, 37.5 percent, raise the same point, and all three were people the founder did not choose.
One lukewarm comment is noise. The same issue from three people who do not know each other is a pattern. Raise it with the founder and ask how they plan to handle it as the team grows.
Check 2
You run 10 reference calls. Four mention the same concern, and all four are off list. What share of calls raised it, in percent?
Check 3
Why are off list references more useful?
Terms in this lesson: Seed round.
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