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Fundability Mini-Assessment

This assessment walks through what investors look for before a first meeting, so you can see where you already stand and which gaps are worth closing first.

What you get

  • A read on your current readiness
  • The gaps most likely to slow a raise
  • What to work on before outreach starts

Before you start

Twelve questions, four choices each, about three minutes. Answer for where things actually stand rather than where you want them to be. This is a structured self-assessment, not a set of investor benchmarks, and your answers stay in your browser.

Assessment progress: 0 of 12 answered

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Readiness

Whether you know what the money is for and have the room to run a process.

Question 1 of 12: Can you name the specific milestone this financing would pay for?

The thing the company would reach with the money that it cannot reach without it.

Question 2 of 12: Do you have a use-of-funds plan you could walk through line by line?

Where the money goes, roughly in what proportion, and what each part is meant to produce.

Question 3 of 12: Does your team have the capacity to run a focused fundraising process right now?

Someone has to hold the process while the company keeps operating. Usually that is you.

Traction

Whether you can show what people are actually doing with what you built.

Question 4 of 12: Can you show current customer or user behavior with a metric you have defined?

A number you chose on purpose, that you could recalculate the same way next month.

Question 5 of 12: Do you have evidence of repeat use, retention, revenue, or another behavior that matters for your model?

Something showing people come back or pay, not only that they arrived once.

Question 6 of 12: Can you explain what has changed since your last meaningful company checkpoint?

Your last raise, launch, or major decision. What moved, and what you learned.

Timing

Whether the financing question is live right now, and what would settle it.

Question 7 of 12: Can you explain why the financing question is active now rather than later?

Something changed, or is about to. A reason grounded in your company, not in the market generally.

Question 8 of 12: Do you know how much operating time you have before financing becomes urgent?

The point where your options start narrowing because of cash rather than choice.

Question 9 of 12: Do you know which decision determines whether you raise now, wait, bootstrap, or use another financing path?

The one open question whose answer would settle which path you take.

Evidence

Whether your numbers and your claims hold up when someone looks closely.

Question 10 of 12: Are your core metrics defined, dated, and reproducible?

Someone else could take your definition and your data and arrive at the same number.

Question 11 of 12: Do you have primary evidence of demand or traction you could share?

Source material, not summary. Usage data, signed agreements, customer conversations you recorded.

Question 12 of 12: Can you answer the biggest open questions about the business with evidence, or clearly name what is still unknown?

Naming an unknown counts. Being unaware of it does not.

12 left to answer.

From the publication

Read The Raise Memo

A note for founders raising capital—what investors notice, how conviction gets built, and what to do next.

From the Memo

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