A recent X post presented some interesting questions. We reproduce them here:

  making pre-seed decisions in 30 mins is really tough 

  here are some random places i look for signal from obvious to very obscure and arbitrary: 

  how long founders have known one another
  founder roles & equity splits 
  how much founders pay themselves
  how quickly they ship
  conistent conviction and execution
  what they do for fun
  2x+ founder
  how intentionally they speak 
  how clearly they write
  conciseness of their tagline
  why they chose their idea
  quality of company name + domain
  pixel perfect, simple + refined website
  velocity of customer conversations * quality coefficient
  whether they can cite the 3 people they want to hire immediately 
  whether they can cite their top 3 ideal customers immediately 
  design intuition (less is more)
  impatience / anxiety score (more is good, up to a point)
  desire to "win" / competitiveness
  chip on shoulder to prove themselves
  taste, products / clothing / people they follow (very mixed signals)
  nepotism (mixed signal) 1/3 entitlement (bad), 1/3  connections (good), 1/3 positive mentorship and learning (good)
  big company tenure (OK but generally bad if stayed too long)
  signals of self-worth

  what other investors mostly look for: 

  harvard/stanford/MIT CS
  AI research lab
  prev. quant  / math olympiad
  who else is investing

As it happens, we satify both lenses. As ex-Googlers from Berkeley, we embraced humility over hubris. We reached deep into our pockets, and bought a partnership stake in a real, mid-size tax firm doing over a 1m/year in revenue. When you ask us how many customers we've spoken to, our answer is thousands. As always, find our latest deck at shmarty.com/deck.

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