After hearing thousands of founders pitch, over time, I’ve noticed that there are certain characteristics and values I gravitate more towards.
Evaluating early-stage founders through purely performance-based criteria can feel inorganic and forced. It can also unfairly filter out overlooked founders that don’t have equal access to the same networks or resources, which investors can easily provide. These disparities are most obvious at the pre-seed stage.
I’m still learning along the way, but there have been 5 clear indicators from founders that have resonated with me the most, in no order.
These 5 were carefully selected after years of research, learning from friends of Conscience (advisors, GPs), speaking with behavioral scientists, and pattern matching:
1. Integrity through transparency.
To develop a truly honest relationship, I appreciate founders who are open about what’s going right and what’s not. I pay attention to see if founders naturally bring up the “warts” and how thoroughly they’ve thought through their next plan of action.
They also answer my imperfect questions perfectly.
2. Obsession with primary source data.
This frame of thinking comes through naturally in the word choice and non-verbal communication that founders use to describe their companies. Founders who grow visibly excited by and prioritize learning about the customer discovery process also naturally translate to having the greatest empathy for their consumers.
These founders have intuitively taught me the ins-and-outs about their ideal customers, and learnings that surprised them.
3. Velocity: moving fast in the right direction.
High-trajectory founders are clear super-learners. They ask the right and many questions, and are obsessed with understanding their business to move fast with the optimal strategy. These founders also have amazing growth mindsets. They leverage every resource available to identify and execute towards their KPIs.
They are clear on their KPIs for the next 3 weeks and 1 year — with reasons to back it up.
4. “Solve any problem.”
A potent combo of a history of beating the odds (which didn’t need to take place in your career), demonstration of 1st principles thinking, and low-ego behavior to recognize there is a problem worth solving. By the end of our process, I walk away feeling the founder can hack any problem life throws their way.
5. Tenacity (not perseverance).
These founders don’t just relentlessly execute, but they also actively incorporate new data to adjust their direction along the way. They’re not afraid of admitting their course of action may be the wrong one, staying open-minded to new data, and pivoting (vs. repeating the same action for the same outcome, repeatedly).
I’ve found that these values have held true across a large majority of the founders I’ve spoken to and invested in.
For founders: Is this what you expected? What would you change?
For investors: What do you think? What are you prioritizing right now?
