Discover what investors will find before they do. Fill in what you know — skip what you don't.
Or working title if you're pre-name
No jargon — as if talking to a smart person who doesn't know your industry
Be specific — who experiences it, how painful is it, how often?
How does your product work? What's the core mechanism?
What do you have that competitors can't easily copy?
Personal frustration? A conversation? Data you saw? The more specific, the better.
Be specific — demographics, job title, company size, behavior
"Marek, VP Engineering at Tipalti, 38, Warsaw" — not "VPs at fintechs". Specificity here is the founder fitness test.
Real substitutes are the real competition (Excel, a friend, ignoring it). If "they don't solve it", you might not have a real problem.
Strangers paying you = the strongest signal of validated demand. Friends paying out of pity doesn't count.
Who have you spoken to? What did you learn?
Critical for sample bias — conversations with friends prove less than cold outreach to strangers. Pick the dominant channel.
Which segments, personas, or counter-examples did you systematically miss? Blind spots often live here.
Conversations? Data? Personal experience? "I think so" is also valid — just be honest.
Their exact words, not your interpretation. If you don't have one — leave blank.
Everyone has one. The answer to this question is often the most important thing you need to know.
What must be true for your startup to succeed? Tag each one with category + evidence (1-5: pure guess → hard data) + risk (1-5: low → company-killer). Powers the assumption priority matrix in your PDF.
Who are your direct competitors and their key weaknesses?
What do customers use today instead of your solution?
What trend, technology shift, or regulation makes this the right moment?
Competitor move? Regulatory change? New technology? Wciel się w sceptyka.
How much does regulation gate your business? "Killer" = single bad call ends the company (e.g. money movement without licensing).
Current or planned pricing structure
CAC, LTV, payback period — what do you know so far?
What's your single most important growth metric?
MoM or WoW growth of your key metric
Relevant experience, domain expertise, previous exits?
Not what you wish you were good at — what you actually are.
Have you pitched before? Outcome?
5/10
Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. What's the strongest case against you?
Customer conversations? Financials? A hard conversation with a co-founder? Sales?
Select all the methods you actually used — not what you plan to do.
Tells us how quantitative vs informal your research is.
Honesty here signals maturity to investors. They all ask this.
Founders who never change their mind exhibit confirmation bias. Concrete examples welcome.
A specific date + a specific data point that flipped your thinking. Founders who can't answer this aren't learning.
If you can't name one, either you're too early or not self-aware. Both are signals.
Complete each sentence in your own words. Short answers are fine. No right or wrong — this is a window into your actual thinking.
Five questions about how you think. Answer instinctively — no right answers.
5/10
5/10
Pure data ↔ Pure intuition
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