NAME OF COMPANY DATE **1. Investment Thesis** - What does the company do? - What is their mission and vision? - What inspired the founding team to start this? - TAM for this type of service - Summary of traction - Why does it fit into our thesis? This investment fits with our investment strategy in [SPACE], namely, to invest early at a reasonable valuation in a company pursuing a unique and large market opportunity.  **2. Product/Technology** - What products do they offer? - Give an overview of the key product and the primary use case it is solving. - When was the key product launched? How much traction has it gotten? - What is good/bad about the product? How is the design? - What are the key product metrics? How is it performing? - What are the proprietary aspects of the technology? Any patents? - Any notable PR or videos featuring the technology and/or product? - What is the core technology platform used to build the product? Do a technical assessment with an expert. - What are the next features and/or product on the roadmap? **3. Customers** - Who is the target audience? - Who are the paying customers? - What is current customer feedback and testimonial on the product? What is the NPS? - What are some notable customer quotes? - What is the app rating? - What are some of the smarter customer acquisition strategies? **4. Team** - CEO, notable experiences, educational background - Overview of key leadership positions - Overview of investors and advisors **5. Competition** - Landscape on relevant dimensions – good to do a 2-sided one - For closest competitors get data reports from Mattermark and/or Alexa and/or App Annie - Why this is the winning one among competitors - Broader landscape (not direct competitor), can also segment by classes of competition **6. Biz Model** - List current monetization avenues and traction so far - Could do a survey of current customers to understand which monetization approaches will work v not work - Talk to current customers and prospective future customers (who would be unbiased) **7. Financials** - How’s it going so far? What’s the MRR? What’s the ARR? - Growth rates - Traction gap **8. Milestones/Use of Proceeds** - How much money raised so far, who are the key investors - What are they raising, and what milestones are they planning to achieve with this (# of WAU etc., talent hires, marketing expenses) **9. Risks** - Market - Large enough TAM? - Real signs of demand? More than just a PR bump? - Repeatability - Market demand for monetized product? - Team - Commercial experience? Tech experience? - Gaps in leadership - Finance - Proven monetization avenues? - Product/Technology - Churn - Retention - Challenges faced by competitors, do they have an avenue to overcome - Risks to technical success (handling high volume of users) - Legal **10. Deal Structure** - What % ownership do we need? **11. Due Diligence** - Include individuals involved in due diligence and their contact info *Thanks to Elizabeth Burstein for passing me this template when I was a rookie in venture.* %% ## Scraps - [ ] Incorporate Tiger Global's Invest Checklist: [Google Sheets: Sign-in](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CFFoNRlzfTje8P-CA-KOvFRwiNCCycN6zhKKPlhOnyM/edit#gid=1121537459) when I was new to the industry. %%