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CriterionDefinitionAuto-pass/Auto-kill signals
Score (1-5)
Weight % (by stage)
Weighted Score
Comments / Evidence
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Founders (Fit + Trust)The founders have the domain insight, execution capability, and moral reliability to win this specific problem in this specific market. This is the #1 early-stage risk reducer.Kill: founder evasiveness, blame culture, ethical hand-waving, “we’ll hire someone for X” for core competency.

Pass: founder has unfair insight + can execute fast.		0
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Must-Solve PainThe problem is painful, frequent, budgeted, and urgent enough that customers will switch behavior and pay.Kill: vague ICP, problem described with buzzwords, customers “like it” but won’t pay/switch.0
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Market (Size + Why Now)
The opportunity is large enough for venture outcomes, reachable through a realistic wedge, and enabled by a structural change that makes adoption inevitable now.Kill: TAM math theater; ‘boiling the ocean’; no trigger for adoption now.0
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Moat WedgeThe product delivers a 10× improvement on a narrow job-to-be-done, with a defensible wedge (workflow ownership, distribution leverage, data, or compounding product advantage).Kill: “AI wrapper” with no proprietary workflow access, no data advantage, no integration rights, no reason to switch.0
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Proof of PullEvidence that the market is pulling the product forward—measured by retention, depth of use, willingness to pay, and repeatable conversion (not vanity metrics).Kill: vanity metrics, pilots that never convert, churn disguised as “we’re early.” Pass: clear love/retention + expanding usage.0
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GTM MachineA credible, testable path to acquire and expand customers that can become repeatable and efficient—not “we’ll go viral” or “partnerships.”Kill: “We’ll go viral” with enterprise pricing; dependency on 1 partner; CAC hand-waving.0
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Economic EngineThe model can produce venture-scale outcomes with improving economics as it grows (margins, retention, CAC efficiency), without requiring headcount to scale linearly.Kill: scaling requires proportional headcount; no path from services to software (unless services is the moat strategy, explicitly).0
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Milestone EfficiencyThe company converts dollars into learning and de-risking efficiently, with crisp milestones that justify the next round.Kill: raising to ‘extend runway’ with no de-risking; huge teams pre-PMF; metric soup.0
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Terms & FitThe deal can produce venture returns under sane terms, with clean structure and a path to meaningful ownership—aligned with the investor’s thesis and constraints.Kill: funky structures, stacked SAFEs with conflicting caps, valuation disconnected from stage, hostile investor dynamics.0
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-> Use the Next Sheet!
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