From first look to a signed investment

One deal, start to finish: screen, check the market and the numbers, check the people and the paperwork, decide, write it up, negotiate.

The lessons, in order

1. The first forty minutes decide the next forty hours — A thesis is only worth writing if it changes what you do at intake. This is the mechanics of applying it fast enough to protect the time it was meant to protect. (13 min)
2. Spend the first meeting listening for what is specific — A first meeting is for finding out whether the opportunity fits your thesis and whether the founder's claims are specific enough to check. Structure it, ask for facts, and leave with a clear next step. (11 min)
3. Ask whether it fits your thesis before asking whether it is good — A good company outside your thesis is a different decision from a good company inside it. Checking fit first stops attractive deals from quietly rewriting your strategy. (9 min)
4. A market is the customers you can name, times what they will pay — Commercial diligence tests market claims by building them from countable customers and realistic prices, then checking the parts the company can actually reach. (10 min)
5. Not every number called revenue is the same kind of money — Financial diligence starts by separating recurring revenue from one-off fees, bookings from recognised revenue, and invoiced amounts from cash collected. (11 min)
6. Verify the claims a founder's credibility rests on — Founder background checks confirm the specific facts that make a founder credible for this company - education, roles, prior companies and outcomes - using sources the founder did not provide. (9 min)
7. First confirm the company you are investing in is the one that owns the business — Legal diligence starts with structure: where the company is incorporated, whether it is in good standing, which entity holds the customers, contracts and IP, and whether the shares being offered can be issued. (10 min)
8. Sort what you know from what you assume from what nobody can know yet — Before deciding, separate verified evidence, assumptions that could be tested, and genuine unknowns. The decision is about whether the unknowns are acceptable at this price. (10 min)
9. Four sections decide the vote; the rest is context — A memo can run to fifteen pages and still be decided on four of them - the thesis, the bear case, the return math and the terms. Everything else is background that makes the reader feel informed without changing the answer. (11 min)
10. A term sheet sets two things: who gets the money and who gets the say — Every clause in a term sheet affects either the economics - how proceeds are divided - or control - who can make or block decisions. Valuation is only one economic term among several. (10 min)
11. You will not set the price, but you can ask for the three things that matter — Small investors join rounds on terms the lead negotiated. What remains negotiable is usually information rights, pro-rata rights and a most favoured nation clause - and those are worth asking for every time. (10 min)
12. Ask for a few numbers on a steady rhythm, not everything whenever you remember — Good monitoring of private positions rests on a consistent update, at a cadence matched to stage and position size, covering the handful of numbers that actually signal health. (10 min)

All Investor Academy subjects