Founder Fit
Why are you the right person to build this business?
DQ business building principles
How we decide what to build, and who to back.
Most venture failures aren’t a mystery in hindsight. The founder didn’t really know the market. The problem wasn’t as painful as everyone thought. The solution needed too much capital before it could be tested. The economics never made sense.
We’ve turned the hindsight into a checklist. Twelve principles, grouped into four quadrants. Every business we back has to hold up against all of them. Not on day one, but by the time it matters.
The four quadrants
Twelve principles, grouped into four quadrants.
We partner with experienced professionals to build B2B, asset-light businesses with automation potential and $10M+ exit paths.
The Four Quadrants define how we build conviction. Twelve principles for building businesses worth backing. Three principles in each quadrant — each one a clear criteria that can be answered with evidence.
Market Fit
Why this problem at this time?
Solution Fit
Why will this solution work?
Opportunity Fit
Why does this become a $10M+ business?
How conviction builds
I Believe → I Know → I Show.
Each principle should be tested at every stage of the founder’s journey. All principles do not need to be proven on day one. Answers sharpen over time as the evidence grows and we build conviction.
I Believe
Qualitative evidence to build conviction.
I Know
Quantitative data to find proof in the market.
I Show
Growth metrics to prove a scalable business and exit path.
Quadrant 01 · Founder Fit
Why are you the right person to build this business?
Is your edge earned, are your relationships trusted, and your drive and character real?
The Founder Fit principles answer the Why You question from three angles: what you know, who you know, and why you'll keep going.
Earned Edge
What do you know that others don't (your knowledge / understanding / insight) — and how have you earned it (your experience / expertise / track record)?
The edge is the insight outsiders would take years to develop. It's knowing how the market really works: the frustrations, the unspoken rules, the decisions that happen behind closed doors. It usually comes from time spent inside the industry, doing the work, watching the patterns.
If your edge could be replicated by reading a few articles, it isn't an edge.
Trusted Relationships
Do you already know the people you need to reach — and do they trust you?
Selling to strangers is slow. Selling to people who already pick up your call is fast. The right founder knows the buyers by name, has worked with them or near them, and can get real feedback in days rather than months.
This is the head start that turns into momentum.
Drive & Character
Are you driven to build this business — and do you have what it takes to make this work?
Drive comes from something deeper than money. A fascination with the problem, a frustration that won't go away, a belief that this is the work you want to be known for. Character shows up in what you've already done: sold something hard, operated without a safety net, kept going when no one was watching.
This is the principle that holds the rest together when the early evidence is thin.
Quadrant 02 · Market Fit
Why this problem at this time?
Is the pain real and unsolved, the buyer willing to pay, and a gap open now?
The Market Fit principles test whether the demand-side, the commercial-side, and the competitive-side of the market all hold up.
Unsolved Pain
Are people aware of this pain and desperate to solve it? Are they spending time and money on workarounds?
Real pain shows up in behaviour. People build workarounds, hack together spreadsheets, pay for tools that half-solve it, complain about it in public. If you have to convince people they have the problem, you don't have a market yet. You have a thesis.
Buyer & Budget
Is there a buyer who can say yes — and do they already have money for problems like this? Do you know who they are by name and role?
You need to know the buyer by role and by name. You need to know what budget the spend comes out of, what they're expected to deliver with it, and how often they make this kind of decision. “Someone, somewhere, might pay” is not a buyer.
Room to Win
Is there a gap competitors haven't filled — and a reason the timing is right to fill the gap now?
Markets are rarely empty. The question is whether the incumbents have a blind spot, a structural reason they can't move, or an assumption that's gone stale. The timing question matters too: something has usually shifted in regulation, technology, or behaviour that opens the door now.
If the gap has been open for ten years and no one has walked through it, ask why.
Quadrant 03 · Solution Fit
Why will this solution work?
Is the entry point narrow, the build easy to test, and the path toward a product clear?
The Solution Fit principles test the discipline of starting small. Each principle hands off to the next: narrow what you build, test it quickly and cheaply, learn manually to understand the customer before automating.
Narrow Wedge
Have you narrowed the problem and solution to the smallest version that's quick to test with real customers?
The wedge is one specific customer, one specific use case, one specific version of the solution. Small enough that you can run a real experiment in weeks. The temptation is always to widen the scope to make it more impressive. The discipline is to make it smaller until it's testable.
Asset-Light
Can you deliver the first version with time, skill, and light-tech — without hiring a team, building infrastructure, or raising money?
Before there's evidence, every dollar spent on infrastructure is a bet on a guess. We look for solutions that can be delivered with what you already have: your time, your skills, off-the-shelf tools. If the first version needs a team and a seed round, you're building before you've learned.
Manual to Productised
Can you start by delivering the value manually first, then automate what works?
Manual delivery is how you learn what customers actually value. You see where they get stuck, what they ignore, what they'd pay more for. Once you know, you automate the parts that matter and turn the manual work into a product. The order matters: learn first, build second.
Quadrant 04 · Opportunity Fit
Why does this become a $10M+ business?
Is the revenue predictable, the economics scalable, and the flywheel viable?
The Opportunity Fit principles test whether the business compounds into something worth backing: revenue that carries forward, economics that hold at scale, and a viable flywheel that accelerates growth.
Predictable Revenue
Once a customer is won, does revenue keep coming — and can you forecast it?
We look for subscriptions, contracts, or genuine repeat behaviour. Revenue that has to be re-sold every month is expensive revenue. Revenue that carries forward, that you can forecast, is the foundation of a business worth scaling.
Scalable Economics
Does each sale make money — and do the economics hold as you scale?
The unit economics need to work at the first customer and keep working at the hundredth. What you charge has to cover what it costs to acquire and serve, with margin left over. As you scale into adjacent customers or geographies, that ratio should hold or improve.
If the margins only work at scale you haven't reached yet, you're hoping.
Viable Flywheel
Does each customer, piece of data, or network node add momentum — so the business grows faster as it scales?
The best businesses get easier to grow as they get bigger. More customers means more data means a better product. More users means more network value means easier acquisition. Each turn of the wheel adds momentum. If growth gets harder rather than easier as you scale, the business is a treadmill.
How we use these
Twelve principles, running through everything we do.
These twelve principles shape who we accept into the programme, what evidence we ask for at each stage, and when we decide a business is ready to scale.
They’re how we build conviction, and how we stay honest about when we don’t have it yet.
Apply
Think your idea holds up?
The application is where we start pressure-testing it against these twelve principles. We read every one and reply within a week.
Apply now