Guides

How the assessments an investor actually runs are built — valuation, market size, unit economics, competitive position — and where each one breaks.

• Feasibility study: the five tests, and how to run them in a day

  A feasibility study asks whether an idea can work before you spend money finding out. The five standard dimensions, what evidence each one needs, and where the classic template fails software.

  11 min read

• Startup valuation: the five methods, and which one your stage actually uses

  Pre-revenue startups have no cash flows to discount, so valuation borrows from comparables, scorecards and the arithmetic of the round itself. What each method measures, where each breaks, and how dilution really decides the number.

  7 min read

• TAM, SAM, SOM: how to size a market without inventing the number

  The three market sizes, the two ways to calculate them, and the disagreement problem nobody handles — what to do when your sources give you estimates five years and three billion dollars apart.

  9 min read

• Competitive analysis: how to map a market without flattering yourself

  Most competitive analyses are a feature grid where the author wins every row. The four competitor types, how to find the ones you would never think to search for, and what a defensible differentiation claim looks like.

  6 min read

• Unit economics: the four checks that decide whether growth helps or hurts

  CAC, LTV, payback and cohort survival — the arithmetic that determines whether every new customer funds the business or drains it, and the thresholds investors apply before they read your growth chart.

  6 min read