Find out if your startup is venture fundable, before the market tells you the hard way.
Shawna, the Institute's concierge, will interview you the way an investment committee would. You will receive one of three verdicts, and a straight answer either way.
Interviews are read by the Institute so that a person can follow up where it would help. Please share nothing you would not want read.
Welcome to the Institute. I am Shawna. Tell me what you are building, in a sentence or two, and I will begin asking the questions a venture partner would ask. I promise you a straight answer at the end.
The Verdict
Every plan interviewed receives exactly one of three findings, delivered warmly, early, and with reasons. We never encourage first and walk it back later.
Upon interview of the founder and review of the plan as reported, the Institute renders one finding:
The Ledger
An institute that tells everyone yes is selling something. We publish our count.
The Directory
Publicly stated criteria for 50+ venture firms and accelerators, maintained as a working reference. Three entries as a sample:
The names are free everywhere. What the Institute sells is the reasoning: which nine firms fit your deal, why, and what each will object to. *Reported figures; verified on engagement.
The Library
One hundred twenty six works: the academic literature, the essential books, and the practitioner canon of venture capital, cross-checked against the venture course syllabi at Harvard, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Wharton, and MIT. Funding advice grounded in the literature, not blog folklore.
Wing One \u00b7 The Academic Literature54 papers
Foundations (Sahlman 1990; Gorman and Sahlman 1989; Gompers 1995; Lerner 1995; Gompers and Lerner 2001; Da Rin, Hellmann, and Puri 2013; Lerner and Nanda 2020; Kaplan and Lerner 2010, 2016). Contracts and terms (Kaplan and Stromberg 2003, 2004, 2001; Hellmann 2006; Gornall and Strebulaev 2020; Bengtsson and Sensoy 2011; Ewens, Gorbenko, and Korteweg 2022). Selection (Gompers, Gornall, Kaplan, and Strebulaev 2020; Kaplan, Sensoy, and Stromberg 2009; Bernstein, Korteweg, and Laws 2017; Hsu 2004; Sorensen 2007; Azoulay et al. 2020; Gompers, Mukharlyamov, and Xuan 2016; Ewens and Townsend 2020; Scott, Shu, and Lubynsky 2020). Returns (Kaplan and Schoar 2005; Cochrane 2005; Korteweg and Sorensen 2010; Harris, Jenkinson, and Kaplan 2014; Moskowitz and Vissing-Jorgensen 2002; Hall and Woodward 2010; Nanda, Samila, and Sorenson 2020; Ewens and Rhodes-Kropf 2015). What VC does to companies (Hellmann and Puri 2002, 2000; Puri and Zarutskie 2012; Bernstein, Giroud, and Townsend 2016; Ewens and Marx 2018; Megginson and Weiss 1991; Chemmanur, Krishnan, and Nandy 2011). Networks and the ecosystem (Hochberg, Ljungqvist, and Lu 2007; Sorenson and Stuart 2001; Chen, Gompers, Kovner, and Lerner 2010; Guzman and Stern 2020; Kerr, Nanda, and Rhodes-Kropf 2014; Nanda and Rhodes-Kropf 2013; Ewens, Nanda, and Rhodes-Kropf 2018). Angels, accelerators, and alternatives (Kerr, Lerner, and Schoar 2014; Lerner, Schoar, Sokolinski, and Wilson 2018; Gonzalez-Uribe and Leatherbee 2018; Yu 2020; Hallen, Cohen, and Bingham 2020; Mollick 2014; Howell 2017). Plus the classroom additions: Sahlman's venture capital method note and Fenn, Liang, and Prowse 1995.
Wing Two \u00b7 The Books40 volumes
The mechanics of the deal (Feld and Mendelson, Venture Deals; Kupor, Secrets of Sand Hill Road; Metrick and Yasuda; Da Rin and Hellmann; Ramsinghani; Wasserman, The Founder's Dilemmas; Bussgang; Cremades; Klaff; Tamaseb, Super Founders; Calacanis, Angel; Strebulaev and Dang, The Venture Mindset). History and the nature of the game (Mallaby, The Power Law; Nicholas, VC: An American History; Ante, Creative Capital; Gompers and Lerner, The Venture Capital Cycle and The Money of Invention; Lerner, Boulevard of Broken Dreams; Lerner and Leamon, Patient Capital; Stross, eBoys; Berlin, Troublemakers; O'Mara, The Code; Saxenian, Regional Advantage; Lewis, The New New Thing; Maples and Ziebelman, Pattern Breakers). The founder's education (Thiel, Zero to One; Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things; Ries, The Lean Startup; Blank; Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test; Moore, Crossing the Chasm; Christensen; Hoffman and Yeh, Blitzscaling; Gil, High Growth Handbook; Chen, The Cold Start Problem; Helmer, 7 Powers; Dunford, Obviously Awesome; Doerr, Measure What Matters; Fishkin, Lost and Founder).
Wing Three \u00b7 The Practitioner Canon32 works
The essays every partner has read (Andreessen on product market fit and software eating the world; Graham on raising money, default alive or dead, doing things that don't scale, startup equals growth; Gurley on revenue quality and the road to recap; Dixon's Babe Ruth effect; Suster's lines not dots; Lee's unicorn club; Rachleff on product market fit; Valentine's target big markets; Neumann on power laws and the 1980s; Sequoia's elements of enduring companies; Wilson's MBA Mondays; Feld's term sheet series; Sahlman's How to Write a Great Business Plan; Zider's How Venture Capital Works). Metrics and reference documents (a16z's startup metrics; Janz's five ways to $100M; Bessemer's laws of cloud and ARR benchmarks; Skok's SaaS metrics; Tunguz's benchmarks; the YC SAFE documents; the NVCA model documents; the Kauffman LP report; the First Round Review archive; Ritter's IPO data).
The live library gives every work its own page: a plain language summary, why it matters to a founder, and what it changes about your pitch. Shawna carries the canon into every interview.
Terms of Engagement
Every fee is flat. The Institute never takes a percentage of a raise and never charges contingent on a close. That is a compliance principle, not a pricing strategy.