What I look for as a scout (and what I ignore)

After three years scouting and a few hundred decks, the signals I weight have almost nothing to do with what founders think they're being judged on.

What I weight heavily

• Founder-customer proximity. Has the founder, in the last month, personally handled an inbound? Done a customer call? Closed a deal? Distance correlates with death.
• Speed of iteration. Not how fast they ship code — how fast they change their minds when the data tells them to. Most teams can't.
• Honesty in the bear case. Ask any founder what kills the company in 18 months. The good ones answer in one sentence. The bad ones explain why nothing can.
• The team's calendar. Where the founder spends their week is who they're becoming. Show me the last seven days of meetings.

What I quietly ignore

• The TAM slide. It's almost always wrong, almost always rounded up.
• The competitive matrix where they have all the checkmarks. Comedy.
• "Ex-FAANG" without context. Some FAANG roles teach you nothing about building from zero.
• Logos of "advisors" who don't respond to email.

The two questions I always ask

"Walk me through the last customer you lost. Why?"

"If you had to cut 50% of the roadmap tomorrow, what stays?"

Both answers are usually more informative than the entire deck.