The Founder-Founder Fit Score is a five-minute read on whether you and your team are ready to raise a Seed or Series A round. Answer one honest question on each of five axes: team, traction, defensibility and AI moat, market, and fundraising readiness. Score yourself as you are today, not as your deck describes you. When you are torn between two answers, take the lower one. Accuracy lives at the low end of your instincts. Your total lands between 5 and 20 and places you in one of three bands, each with a candid verdict about what to do next. Turnings reward the prepared.
Team How well does your founding team match the company you are trying to build?
Mostly solo, or a team assembled recently. No direct experience in this market, and key technical or commercial roles are still gaps you plan to hire into after the raise. Two or more committed co-founders who have worked together for a few months. You cover the core skills between you, but there are obvious holes a sharp investor will name in the first meeting. Complementary founders with relevant domain or technical depth and a real track record of shipping together. You can explain why this specific team wins, and the gaps you have are senior hires, not founder-shaped holes. Founders with unusual, demonstrable insight into this problem, a history of building together, and the standing to attract top talent. Investors who know the space already recognize at least one of you.
Traction What evidence do you have that people want what you have built?
A working prototype and warm conversations. No paying customers yet, and usage, if any, comes from friends, design partners, or a pilot that has not converted. First paying customers or committed design partners, but revenue is small, lumpy, and concentrated in one or two accounts. You cannot yet show that it repeats. A growing base of paying customers, retention you can chart, and a repeatable way of winning the next one. Growth is consistent month over month, even if the absolute numbers are still modest. Clear product-market fit: strong retention, expanding accounts, demand you are rationing rather than chasing, and a sales motion that holds up as you add people to it. The numbers argue for you.
Defensibility & AI moat If a well-funded team copied your idea next quarter, what would still protect you?
A thin wrapper on a foundation model and a good prompt. Nothing proprietary underneath, and an honest answer is that a capable team could rebuild the core in a few weeks. Some early advantage — a head start, a workflow you understand better than rivals, or light fine-tuning — but little that compounds on its own yet. Your edge is execution speed, and you know it. At least one moat that strengthens with use: proprietary data, a real distribution or integration advantage, switching costs, or evaluation infrastructure that lets you improve faster than newcomers can catch up. Several reinforcing moats — a data or feedback loop that compounds, structural distribution, and genuine switching costs — so that every month you operate, the gap behind you widens rather than closes.
Market How clearly can you size and defend the opportunity you are chasing?
A large number borrowed from an analyst report, with no bottom-up logic. You cannot yet name your beachhead segment or who, specifically, signs the first checks. A credible market in the abstract, but your TAM, SAM, and SOM are top-down estimates. You can describe the space better than you can describe the first thousand customers in it. A bottom-up model built from real pricing and a named beachhead, with a believable path from that wedge to an adjacent, larger market. You can defend the assumptions a partner will challenge. A large, urgent market you understand from the inside, with a clear beachhead, a bottom-up TAM/SAM/SOM that survives scrutiny, and a timing argument for why this wins now rather than three years ago.
Fundraising readiness If a partner said yes today, how ready are you to move to a term sheet?
No deck worth sending, no financial model, no data room, and an unclear ask. You know you want to raise but not how much, at what valuation, or against what milestones. A draft deck and a rough number in mind, but the model is thin, the cap table has loose ends, and you have no organized data room. A diligence request would catch you scrambling. A tight narrative deck, a defensible financial model, a clean cap table, and a data room you could open tomorrow. You know your round size, your use of funds, and the milestones it buys. All of the above, plus a sharp technical story for non-technical partners, a considered valuation thesis, and a target list of the right funds. You are ready to run a real process, not send cold emails.
