Funding readiness
Are you ready to raise?
15 questions, no typing, about three minutes. You get a readiness score, a breakdown of where you are strong and where you are thin, and a straight answer on whether now is the moment to go and talk to investors.
- No email needed to see your score
- Every answer is anchored to real evidence, so the score means something
- If the honest answer is "not yet", it will say so
What this actually measures
Most readiness quizzes ask you to rate yourself out of ten, which returns a wall of sevens and tells nobody anything. Every answer here is anchored to something checkable instead. Not “how strong is your traction?” but which of these is true: revenue growing month on month, first paying customers, signed pilots, unpaid beta users, a waitlist, or nothing yet. You cannot flatter your way through it, which is the only reason the score is worth having.
Eight dimensions get scored, and they are not weighted equally. Traction counts for twice what your paperwork does, because a founder with every document and no customers is not more fundable than one with revenue and a rough deck. Evidence of need and your model and team sit next, then competition, market sizing, materials and the ask.
The result names your real gaps and stops there. A dimension scoring well is not dressed up as a weakness to give you something to worry about, so a strong run comes back with nothing to fix. Where the gaps are in your materials, they map onto specific work: a missing one pager, deck, financial model, investor website, data room, or a product investors keep asking to see.
If you score too low to raise, you get our free pitch prep guide and a straight recommendation to build evidence first. If what you actually need is the product itself rather than the raise, scope the build instead, and you can see what we have built for other founders along the way.
Fundraising questions
- How do I know if I am ready to raise investment?
- Readiness is mostly evidence, not paperwork. Investors are checking whether the problem is real, whether anyone is already paying to have it solved, whether you know who you are competing with, whether the numbers survive being pulled apart, and whether the ask is specific. A polished deck on top of no evidence is the most common reason a good introduction gets wasted. If the honest answer is that the evidence is not there yet, the right move is to build proof before you start booking meetings.
- What do investors look for before they invest?
- In rough order of weight: traction, evidence that the problem is real and urgent, a business model and team that can deliver it, a clear-eyed read on the competition, credible market sizing built from the bottom up rather than lifted from an analyst report, the materials that let them do their own diligence, and an ask that names what the money buys. Traction moves valuations more than anything else on that list, and it is the hardest to fake.
- What documents do I need to raise investment?
- At minimum a one-page intro that travels without you, an investor deck, and financial projections you can defend. Beyond that, a narrative that survives a hostile room, a business plan or information memorandum for investors who ask for long form, a website that stands up when someone looks you up after your deck lands, a working product or prototype, and a data room once you reach diligence.
- How long does a funding round take?
- Usually about six months from first conversation to money in the bank. That is why runway is the number that quietly decides your negotiating position: starting a raise with three months left means running out of options at exactly the moment you need them. If you are close to the edge, that is the first thing worth talking about, ahead of the deck.
- How much should founders invest in their own company?
- There is no threshold, but investors do ask and they do notice the answer. Money the founders have put in themselves is read as conviction, and it changes how the rest of the conversation goes. Sweat equity is not the same thing, and being straight about the number is better than dressing it up.
- Is the assessment free, and do I have to give you my email?
- It is free and you see your score without giving us anything. There is a form under the result if you want a second opinion from us, and it is optional. Founders who score too low to raise get pointed at our free pitch prep guide rather than a proposal.