Day 18: Score-driven founder questions

Five questions, each seeded by a signal — sharper than 'tell me about traction.'

Yesterday

Yesterday's sector sweep gave you the broad scan. Today you turn one specific score into five sharp questions.

Why this signal matters

The framework's second-order value is what it does to your founder conversation. A founder who hears 'your dependents graph has 80+ external repos, what's the migration cost for an enterprise customer who depends on you?' knows you read the engineering, not just the deck.

The 5-minute exercise

1Pick one of the candidates you scored last week.
2For each signal that scored +1, write one founder-grade question seeded by that signal.
3For each signal that scored 0, write one diagnostic question.
4Total: 6 questions. Use them in your next first meeting.

What you’re filtering for

Six questions, each tied to a specific signal. The form is 'I noticed [data], what's the [implication]?' — never 'do you have...' Yes/no closes the conversation. Implication questions open it.

Edge case

If the founder's deck already addresses every signal explicitly, congratulations — they've read the same panel data you have. Move to the unscored questions: hiring plan, GTM, competitive moat.

Bonus

Founders remember the investor who read their code. The Q&A bar moves from 'standard pitch' to 'we're already in diligence.' That's the conversation differential the framework gives you for free.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow: scoring a portfolio company retroactively — what the framework would have caught at investment time.

Curriculum: /challenge · Methodology: /methodology · Paper: ssrn.com/abstract=6606558