For VCs, family offices, and individuals who back founders
Evidence, not testimony.
The deck gets the meeting. The file gets the check. Here is the checklist for the file — the same one we teach founders — turned around to face you.
For VCs, family offices, and individuals who back founders
The deck gets the meeting. The file gets the check. Here is the checklist for the file — the same one we teach founders — turned around to face you.
The idea
Most private investment decisions below the institutional line are made loosely — a deck, a founder they liked, a friend who is in, a number that felt right. The deck is testimony. Testimony is what the founder says about the company. Evidence is what a stranger can verify without the founder in the room: a cap table that ties to the documents, a ledger that ties to the bank, a unit that earns money through a channel, a customer who bought twice. Seed investors, family offices, and individuals who have done well in their own businesses know this in their own field and forget it at the pitch, because the pitch is designed to make them forget it.
The scorecard is the same instrument the founder uses to prepare — the Scalewrights readiness checks — turned around to face the investor. Fourteen, fifteen, and fifteen rows: the pages a professional checks in the first hour, in the order they check them. You score each page on one question only: can I verify this tonight without calling the founder? Not “do I believe it.” Not “is it big.” Can I check it. Then you read the three lowest rows, and those are the three questions you ask — and the founder’s answer to those three is worth more than the whole deck.
It is not a substitute for judgment about the market, the product, or the person. It is the part of the decision that can be done on paper before judgment gets involved, so that judgment is spent on the things only judgment can do. And it produces a decision you can explain to a partner, a spouse, or an investment committee in one sentence: the file scored 19 of 28, with one red flag on the cap table, and we asked for three pages.
The method
Score each row on what is in the file, not on what the founder could produce by Friday.
The scale
Red flags override the score
Each card lists its red flags. Any one present is a pass, or “not yet” regardless of the total. A red flag is not a judgment about the founder; it is a page that must exist before money can move.
The verdict
Score twice
Once from the file before the meeting; once after. The difference is what the pitch did to you. If the after-score is higher and no new page arrived, the pitch moved you, not the evidence.
The three questions to ask are the three lowest-scored rows, in the order the card lists them (that is the order a founder can build them). Ask for the page, not the answer.
The Five-C read · optional
Write one sentence about the file as a whole — Clear (could a stranger understand it on one read?), Complete (is the unflattering half there?), Concise (one page where one page will do?), Correct (does every number tie to a source?), Compelling (cover every adjective — does it still persuade?). These are the tests the founder was taught; an investor reading them back closes the loop.
The decision line
“[Company] scored [N] of [max] ([verdict]) with [k] red flag(s); we asked for [the three pages]; decision: [pursue / diligence / pass / not yet].”
The scorecard below writes it for you, and gives you a button to copy it into the deal log.
The live scorecard
Pick the stage, answer one question per row, tick any red flag. Nothing is submitted and nothing leaves this page — the verdict, the three questions, and the decision line appear as you go.
The read
The download · free
Everything on this page as files you can print, fill in, and keep. They arrive by email.
No spam; leave any time. Investors are never sold the books — you send founders.
The referral loop
Every investor gets a link to send a founder. The check pages read the ?ref=, keep it, and post it to Kit as the referrer — so the founder’s check, tags, and any purchase can be seen against the investor who sent them. No money changes hands on referrals — your return is a founder who shows up with a file.
Two to forty characters: lowercase letters, digits, hyphens.
https://scalewrights.com/seed-file.html?ref=https://scalewrights.com/series-a.html?ref=https://scalewrights.com/build-line.html?ref=If a paid affiliate arrangement is wanted later, Gumroad’s affiliate program is the mechanism — not now.
Where the founder goes next
A “not yet” is only useful if it comes with an address. Each stage has a free check, a book, and a flat-fee review — the same rows you just scored, from the founder’s side of the table.
Twelve artifacts a stranger can verify plus The Ask, built in ten weeks on a calendar that works backward from the wire — with the Workbook of fifteen live templates, from the cap table with post-money SAFE conversion to the round-pricing corridor.
The Seed File™ Review — $1,750 flat. When the three pages need a red pen rather than a chapter, this is the one to point at. How it works →
The twenty-one pages a partner actually checks — the data room that proves the past and the roadmap that prices the future — with the ledger, the cohorts, the 6×6, and the valuation bridge built line by line.
The Series A Review — $1,750 flat. When the three pages need a red pen rather than a chapter, this is the one to point at. How it works →
Five capitals, five camps, four gates: the route from the company you run to the company you’re worth, with the Workbook of twenty live templates — the decision inventory, the cadence, the process register, the bench, the concentration cut plan, the window watch.
The Scale Read — $1,750 flat. When the three pages need a red pen rather than a chapter, this is the one to point at. How it works →
The disclosure
Flat fees only — never a percentage of a raise, a revenue line, or a sale price, never a success fee, never a commission. Scalewrights takes no fee from either side of a referral: no money changes hands when you send a founder here, and nothing you do on this page is paid for by anyone. Scalewrights is an advisory firm, not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, placement agent, business broker, or law or accounting firm, and makes no introductions for compensation. The Scorecard, the cards, and the workbook are educational and directional guidance — not a valuation, a fairness opinion, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and not diligence performed on your behalf. Scoring a company here is not a pitch to CLMB Ventures and creates no obligation for CLMB Ventures or any investor to consider or fund any company. Confirm every figure and structure with qualified counsel for your own situation.