@maestroagora/agora 1.2.2 → 1.5.0

package/skills/agora/references/agora-invest.md

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+# Agora INVEST authority
+
+Use this reference only when the primary mode is `INVEST`: actual fundraising, investor communication, investment evaluation, diligence, or capital-allocation work. Do not load it for ordinary company profiles, marketing copy, investor-adjacent directories, or general business writing.
+
+## Contents
+
+1. INVEST route selection
+2. Capital-decision intake
+3. Investment claim ledger
+4. Mutual fit and meeting architecture
+5. Asset-by-asset procedures
+6. Questions and evidence-led dialogue
+7. Objections and unknowns
+8. Rejection evidence ledger
+9. Category, timing, and future narratives
+10. Defensibility system
+11. Product and economics
+12. Process urgency and commitment language
+13. Modifier and surface composition
+14. Legal and ethical boundaries
+15. Evaluation contract
+16. Evidence register
+
+The primary Agora conflict hierarchy remains controlling. This reference increases investment evidence discipline. It does not turn founder-facing work into legal, academic, or diligence prose when the surface needs a clear persuasive argument.
+
+## INVEST route selection
+
+Select one internal route. These routes are perspectives inside `INVEST`, not new public modes or CLI flags.
+
+| Route | Actor and decision | Output job |
+|---|---|---|
+| `FUNDRAISE` | A company seeks capital | Earn the next investor decision with truthful opportunity, proof, risk, economics, and process clarity |
+| `DILIGENCE` | An investor evaluates an opportunity | Test claims, assumptions, risks, return logic, conflicts, and missing evidence |
+| `ALLOCATE` | A decision-maker compares uses of capital | Make alternatives, constraints, expected value, timing, and uncertainty explicit |
+
+Choose by the decision, not by vocabulary. A founder email asking for a meeting is `FUNDRAISE`. An investment committee memo is `DILIGENCE`. A board paper comparing debt, equity, and self-funding is `ALLOCATE`. A company description in an investor directory remains `POSITION` unless it asks for or evaluates capital.
+
+Do not let one route contaminate another:
+
+- Founder persuasion does not control a diligence conclusion.
+- Diligence skepticism does not force a fundraising opener into audit prose.
+- Allocation comparison does not inherit startup-pitch conventions.
+- A requested artifact never changes the actor whose decision it serves.
+
+## Capital-decision intake
+
+Require or explicitly mark missing information that would change the claim, capital decision, or legal route.
+
+### Decision and fit
+
+- route, audience, decision role, and next decision;
+- investor stage, thesis, check size, geography, ownership needs, and timeline where known;
+- company stage and financing instrument;
+- requested asset, channel, destination, surface, and confidentiality state.
+
+### Financing state
+
+- amount sought;
+- amount committed, by commitment class;
+- current close state and decision timeline;
+- current runway and measurement date;
+- use of funds;
+- operating milestones the capital is expected to change;
+- legal, regulatory, tax, or counsel-review requirements.
+
+### Evidence and risk
+
+- historical metrics with source, period, denominator, and cohort;
+- current operating state;
+- forecasts with assumptions and sensitivity;
+- customer, product, technical, market, economic, execution, financing, and legal risks;
+- strongest current proof;
+- largest unresolved uncertainty;
+- known investor concerns;
+- conflicts across the deck, financial model, data room, correspondence, and conversation.
+
+Ask only when the missing information would materially change audience fit, the financing claim, the ask, the risk picture, the next action, or the legal route. Otherwise narrow the output and label the unknown.
+
+Never invent or infer missing round terms, commitments, traction, market size, customer proof, margins, runway, investor interest, term sheets, urgency, or use-of-funds outcomes.
+
+## Investment claim ledger
+
+Classify every material investment claim before drafting.
+
+| Class | Meaning | Required treatment |
+|---|---|---|
+| `HISTORICAL_MEASURED` | Result measured in a completed period | Preserve source, period, cohort, denominator, method, and material exclusions |
+| `CURRENT_STATE` | Verified operating condition at a stated date | State the date and avoid converting current state into trend |
+| `CONTRACTED_COMMITTED` | Obligation supported by an executed instrument | Name the class and relevant conditions without implying cash receipt |
+| `CUSTOMER_REPORTED` | Customer statement rather than company measurement | Attribute it and preserve permission, scope, and typicality |
+| `FORECAST` | Estimated future result produced by assumptions | Expose controlling assumptions, range, and sensitivity |
+| `TARGET` | Intended future result | Do not present it as forecast, commitment, or actual result |
+| `MODEL_ASSUMPTION` | Input used to calculate a scenario | Keep it visible enough to inspect |
+| `INTERPRETATION` | Meaning assigned to evidence | Separate it from the evidence itself |
+| `SCENARIO` | Conditional outcome under stated inputs | Preserve conditions and alternatives |
+| `UNKNOWN_UNMEASURED` | Missing or unmeasured point | Say so; do not repair it rhetorically |
+
+Never move a claim upward in certainty when compressing it.
+
+Keep every claim coordinate exact: actor, population, sample source, period, milestone, instrument, and evidence stage. Do not substitute `buyer`, `customer`, `user`, `investor`, or `market` for one another. Do not infer independence, representativeness, diversity, or typicality from a count. Do not turn an interview sample into a population claim. Do not infer that adjacent evidence is absent because one named milestone has not occurred. Repeat the supplied milestone precisely.
+
+Keep negative process evidence equally exact. `No term sheet`, `no stated investment amount`, and `no formal diligence` are separate facts. Do not compress them into a broader claim such as `no investment terms are in progress` unless that full process state is supplied.
+
+### Metric separations
+
+Keep these distinct:
+
+- recurring revenue and one-time revenue;
+- bookings, recognized revenue, ARR, cash collected, and pipeline;
+- signed, contracted, verbal, indicated, and prospective commitments;
+- gross retention and net retention;
+- active, registered, trial, contracted, and total users or customers;
+- gross margin, contribution margin, operating margin, and cash flow;
+- historical performance, forecast, target, model assumption, and scenario.
+
+Absolute and percentage changes retain baseline and period. Cohort metrics retain inclusion rules. Market size retains population, geography, period, method, price or value basis, and capture logic. Use of funds links capital to an operating milestone without guaranteeing that capital will produce it.
+
+Perform transparent arithmetic when supplied figures make a decision-relevant ratio directly calculable. Label it as arithmetic, preserve numerator and denominator, and do not attach a causal interpretation. If implementation labor is 9,200 against first-year contract value of 18,000, about 51% is arithmetic; whether that ratio causes weak lifetime economics remains a separate question requiring retention, acquisition, delivery, and margin evidence.
+
+## Mutual fit and meeting architecture
+
+Treat fundraising as mutual qualification under unequal bargaining power and real legal duties. Both parties are testing fit, but that does not make their leverage, obligations, or information identical.
+
+Fit may include:
+
+- stage, thesis, check size, geography, ownership, reserves, and timing;
+- market, product, technical, and economic understanding;
+- evidence quality and risk tolerance;
+- partner and investment-committee process;
+- post-investment working relationship;
+- conflicts, governance expectations, and follow-on capacity.
+
+Write toward the next mutual decision, not toward applause.
+
+### Brief opening
+
+Establish only what the next exchange needs:
+
+1. What the company does in reader-owned language.
+2. The strongest current proof.
+3. The verified opportunity, transition, or reason timing matters.
+4. The capital decision or next step when the surface requires it.
+
+Once the listener can identify company, evidence, opportunity, and next decision, stop adding setup. Invite the live question or continue into the mechanism the surface requires. No fixed duration, speaking ratio, or equal-part formula applies.
+
+Complex, unfamiliar, regulated, or scientific opportunities may need more orientation before questions become useful. Safety-critical or legally required information is never delayed to create suspense.
+
+When the problem evidence comes from interviews, pilots, or one named cohort, attribute that evidence before stating the problem as a broader condition. The opening may make the evidence consequential, but it may not enlarge the observed population.
+
+### Evidence-led dialogue
+
+State the intended conclusion. Supply the facts that support it. Leave room for scrutiny. Do not make investors infer a material fact, risk, conflict, ask, or use of funds as a persuasion tactic.
+
+Questions are useful when they expose the live decision criteria. They are not useful when they merely force participation, hide weak preparation, or pressure the investor toward a predetermined answer.
+
+## Asset-by-asset procedures
+
+Fundraising uses related assets with different jobs. There is no universal sequence.
+
+### Introduction request
+
+Give the mutual contact enough accurate material to decide whether to introduce:
+
+- why the recipient is relevant;
+- company in one clear line;
+- one decision-relevant proof point;
+- the specific introduction requested;
+- a forwardable note that does not overstate the relationship.
+
+Do not make the contact endorse claims they cannot verify.
+
+### Direct outreach
+
+Direct outreach is valid when it is truthful, specific, appropriately targeted, and low-friction. State fit, company, one proof point, why this recipient is relevant, and one concrete next action. Do not claim a universal failure rate for direct outreach or a universal advantage for warm introductions.
+
+### Short company brief
+
+Orient the reader, establish proof and opportunity, state the ask when needed, show the main risk or unknown, and provide a destination for the next evidence layer. It is not a compressed deck if the recipient needs a different decision path.
+
+In a one-paragraph brief, keep measured or reported result, evidentiary boundary, interpretation, and capital use as distinct sentence jobs. Do not stack claim classification, limitation, and opportunity interpretation into one long sentence merely to keep the asset to one paragraph.
+
+Do not join an evidence limitation to a positive interpretation with `but`. That construction discounts the boundary. State the boundary in its own sentence, then make only the separate interpretation the evidence supports.
+
+State use of capital as the concrete operating action it funds. Do not replace `add reviewer-system integrations` with abstractions such as `capital-relevant operating objective`, `integration wedge`, or `deployment thesis`.
+
+For a founder-facing fundraising brief, connect present evidence to the proposed use of capital, the operating change or uncertainty the capital is meant to test, and the next investor decision. Do not return a metric inventory. A stated use of funds does not by itself prove that the named area is the current constraint.
+
+### Meeting opening
+
+Use the brief-opening procedure. Do not recite every slide. Do not withhold basic orientation to manufacture curiosity.
+
+### Demo framing
+
+Put the investor in the relevant customer or system state. Show the mechanism, evidence, and limit. Connect the demo to product, market, economic, or execution evidence. Avoid feature tours with no capital-decision argument.
+
+### Deck
+
+Build a standalone argument that can survive internal forwarding. The deck must not depend on founder narration to repair a material omission. Stage, investor context, medium, and available evidence control depth and order.
+
+The deck should let a reader locate:
+
+- company and customer;
+- problem or transition;
+- product and mechanism;
+- evidence and traction at the supplied level;
+- market and capture logic;
+- business and economic model;
+- competition and category;
+- team evidence;
+- material risks and unknowns at the depth the stage requires;
+- financing ask, use of funds, and milestones.
+
+These are decision elements, not a fixed slide count or sequence. If an investor requests the deck before a meeting, provide the right standalone deck unless confidentiality, legal, or strategic constraints justify another response.
+
+### Follow-up
+
+Reflect the actual questions. Answer with evidence. State unresolved items, owners, and dates. Name the next decision. Do not replace a specific discussion with a generic recap.
+
+Return a complete channel-native artifact. For email, include a useful subject line, greeting, body, and sign-off unless the user requests body copy only or supplies a wrapper that already contains them. These framing elements may orient the recipient and action; they may not add urgency, relationship, commitment, or process claims.
+
+Close on the actual next decision. Sending a deck, update, or answer does not by itself tell the recipient what to decide. When the brief supplies the process, name the next decision such as partner review, confirmation of fit, scheduling a discussion, opening diligence, or declining. An offer to send more material is not a substitute for that decision.
+
+When no real decision deadline is supplied, request the next decision without a reply-by date. Do not invent Friday, end-of-week, allocation, or closing pressure after correctly stating that no deadline exists.
+
+When the next decision is whether to schedule another meeting, make the scheduling request operational: ask for confirmation, relevant participants, and workable time options. Ask for topics or evidence only when that information changes preparation. Do not make the recipient invent the whole next step.
+
+### Diligence answer
+
+Give the direct answer first. Classify fact, assumption, forecast, target, scenario, and unknown. Name the source and relevant date. Record conflicts across artifacts rather than silently harmonizing them.
+
+### Partner or investment-committee brief
+
+Write for internal forwarding. Make the thesis, disconfirming evidence, material risk, return logic, open questions, and required next decision locatable without founder narration.
+
+### Data-room index
+
+Organize by the evaluator's decision and verification needs. Identify owner, period, version, confidentiality, and known gap. A complete-looking index must not imply that missing evidence exists.
+
+### Progress update
+
+State what changed, when, and how it was measured. Separate current facts from outlook. Connect the update to the prior question or milestone. Do not manufacture momentum from activity volume.
+
+## Questions and evidence-led dialogue
+
+Useful questions include:
+
+- Which part of the opportunity fits or conflicts with the fund's thesis?
+- What evidence would be required for the next decision?
+- Which risk is currently most decision-relevant?
+- Who else participates in the decision?
+- What must the recipient explain internally?
+- Which company assumption appears weakest?
+- What would make the opportunity clearly wrong for this investor?
+- Which claim requires a source, cohort, or sensitivity that is not yet supplied?
+
+Use answers to select evidence and follow-up. Do not use questions to manipulate agreement, delay a direct answer, or pressure the other party into defending the company for you.
+
+Ask no question whose answer is already documented unless the purpose is to resolve a conflict or test whether the documented point remains current.
+
+## Objections and unknowns
+
+Treat an objection as a decision signal and possible evidence request, not as an enemy to defeat.
+
+Use this sequence when it fits the surface:
+
+1. Restate the concern accurately.
+2. Accept any valid premise.
+3. Classify the disputed point as fact, forecast, assumption, unknown, interpretation, or preference.
+4. Give the strongest relevant evidence.
+5. State the remaining limit or weakness.
+6. Define the next verification step, owner, and date when available.
+
+Do not mechanically agree and redirect. Do not turn every weakness into a strength. A valid weakness remains a weakness until evidence changes it. If a question requires a qualified legal, financial, tax, safety, or technical owner, route it rather than improvising an answer.
+
+When no answer exists, say what is unknown, why it matters, what evidence would resolve it, and whether the decision can proceed without it.
+
+A count of people raising the same objection does not establish that they are independent. One passed review establishes that one review passed, not that a general security posture, procurement path, or deployment process clears. Define the next test across the exact stages the decision needs, such as stated willingness, entry into review, approval, deployment, renewal, and measured timing. Do not collapse an earlier stage into a later one.
+
+## Rejection evidence ledger
+
+Use rejection feedback as evidence to investigate.
+
+Record:
+
+- investor fit and stated reason;
+- stage of process;
+- exact concern in paraphrase unless an approved exact record is required;
+- whether the concern is factual, interpretive, strategic, process-based, or preference-based;
+- evidence already supplied;
+- conflicts with other feedback or observed customer evidence;
+- action taken;
+- result after the change;
+- whether the source population is relevant to the decision being changed.
+
+Repeated feedback is not truth by repetition. Correlated investors may repeat the same unsupported assumption. No fixed count converts opinion into market fact. Validate against customers, company data, market evidence, or the relevant decision population.
+
+Do not optimize every asset after every rejection. Change an argument when the evidence, target fit, or repeated decision failure gives a reason that survives contradiction review.
+
+## Category, timing, and future narratives
+
+A supported investment narrative may explain:
+
+1. The current system or category.
+2. The observable transition.
+3. The decision the transition changes.
+4. The attributes a successful response requires.
+5. The company's evidence against those attributes.
+6. The uncertainties that remain.
+
+Use a familiar category when it helps comparison. Create or name a new category only when the supplied facts show a distinct decision frame that existing language cannot carry without material distortion.
+
+Never:
+
+- create a category merely to avoid competitors;
+- use zero search results as proof that a category is valid;
+- claim that new categories outperform familiar ones as a universal rule;
+- describe a future as inevitable without qualifying evidence;
+- assign certainty to timing that the evidence cannot support;
+- convert a broad technology trend into company-specific demand.
+
+Timing claims require an observable trigger, relevant scope, and a reason it changes this capital decision now. Trend language is a claim.
+
+A horizon named in rejected source copy is not a supported forecast. If the supplied surveys or data do not forecast through that year, do not claim broader uptake through the horizon. Build the timing case from the current observed transition and the company's current evidence.
+
+Keep the trend category exact. Evidence about `computer-vision inspection` does not establish adoption of `autonomous quality control`. A paid pilot supports willingness to pay for that pilot, not renewal strength, repeatable deployment, market share, or category ownership.
+
+When asked for the strongest defensible future case, finish the argument conditionally: supplied trend in its actual population, current company evidence, next proof required, and the position that could become credible if that proof arrives. Do not stop at a risk ledger, and do not recover rhetorical force by broadening the trend population.
+
+## Defensibility system
+
+Assess defensibility as interacting mechanisms, not one adjective.
+
+Possible layers include:
+
+- product or technical capability;
+- data, learning, workflow, or operating method;
+- business and economic model;
+- distribution and go-to-market access;
+- switching, network, regulatory, scale, or integration effects when verified;
+- team-specific execution evidence.
+
+For each layer, record:
+
+- current evidence;
+- maturity state;
+- replication path and cost;
+- dependency;
+- failure condition;
+- whether the effect strengthens, weakens, or remains unknown as the company scales.
+
+Several layers do not automatically create a moat. Integration complexity can be a liability. Early-stage defensibility often remains a hypothesis. Use the narrowest accurate language.
+
+## Product and economics
+
+The material must explain both sides of the company.
+
+### Product
+
+- what is being built;
+- for whom;
+- which situation or decision it changes;
+- how the mechanism works;
+- what evidence supports it;
+- what it cannot yet do;
+- what must be true to scale it.
+
+### Economics
+
+- how value is captured;
+- price, contract, and revenue basis where supplied;
+- which costs scale with usage, sales, support, infrastructure, regulation, or delivery;
+- historical unit economics at their actual maturity level;
+- forecast assumptions and sensitivities;
+- capital requirements;
+- what the proposed financing changes;
+- downside and alternative plans.
+
+Product strength does not repair unsupported unit economics. Economic optimism does not repair an undifferentiated product. A forecast is not a historical result. A target is not a forecast. A plan is not a commitment.
+
+Keep operating facts separate unless evidence links them. A use of funds to reduce installation labor does not establish that installation labor caused the current gross margin, and a gross-margin figure does not identify its cost driver. Present the margin, labor plan, and verification question separately.
+
+### Use of funds
+
+Connect each material use to:
+
+- amount or range;
+- operating action;
+- milestone;
+- expected evidence produced;
+- decision date;
+- dependency and downside response.
+
+Use `is intended to`, `is expected to`, or `would fund` according to the evidence. Do not state that capital guarantees the milestone.
+
+### Allocation comparisons
+
+Compare the named alternatives over the same period, operating base, and decision criteria. Separate supplied facts from arithmetic, assumptions, scenarios, and unknowns. Do not calculate expected value or rank options by probability when no probability model is supplied.
+
+Do not invent a minimum-runway threshold, financing trigger, hurdle rate, portfolio weight, stop-loss, decision date, or other numeric policy. Use a supplied policy when authorized. If the task explicitly asks for a new governance rule, label the number as a proposed governance default and expose the reason, owner, review point, and failure condition. Otherwise state the decision condition qualitatively.
+
+When financing terms, operating sensitivities, or material outcome evidence are missing, narrow the conclusion. The supported decision may be to preserve an available option, obtain the missing evidence, or defer authorization. Missing comparison inputs do not license a precise recommendation.
+
+## Process urgency and commitment language
+
+Urgency must come from a current supplied process fact.
+
+Potentially usable facts include:
+
+- an actual financing deadline;
+- verified runway and measurement date;
+- a supplied allocation state;
+- a current decision window;
+- executed or clearly classified commitments;
+- active diligence at its real stage;
+- an external regulatory, contractual, or operating deadline.
+
+Keep commitment classes exact:
+
+| State | Allowed treatment |
+|---|---|
+| Executed and binding | State the relevant executed commitment and conditions |
+| Signed but conditional | State the condition |
+| Verbal indication | Attribute it as non-binding verbal interest |
+| Active discussion | State the discussion stage without implying commitment |
+| Prospective target | State it as a target, not interest |
+| Unknown | Do not imply demand |
+
+Never imply a term sheet, lead, commitment, advanced diligence, scarcity, competing demand, or closing pressure that does not exist. Do not behave as if a term sheet exists to manufacture social proof. Do not withhold basic information as a reward for engagement.
+
+A true fact can still mislead through omitted context. Review the net impression created by timing, quantity, investor names, and commitment language.
+
+Lock process-state language to the supplied class in every derivative phrase. A `scheduled closing` remains scheduled; a `target close` remains a target; a `current allocation` remains current only for its supplied date. Do not shorten these to `the close`, `ahead of the close`, `closing now`, or another phrase that turns a plan into a settled event.
+
+## Modifier and surface composition
+
+### `INVEST + SCIENCE`
+
+Load both references. Scientific and technical uncertainty, current authoritative verification, calibrated causality, and exact terminology override investment vision language. Explain the mechanism clearly enough for the decision role. Do not convert technical possibility into product readiness, regulatory clearance, customer demand, or commercial scale.
+
+Connect the financing to the exact next validation question: what effect, condition, scale, replication, lifetime, safety, cost, or customer evidence the capital is meant to test. `Validation financing` alone is not a decision-ready use of funds.
+
+### `INVEST + CASE_STUDY`
+
+Load both references. A customer case remains evidence about its stated subject, period, intervention, and measurement. It is not proof of general market performance, typicality, causal product impact, or future company results unless the evidence separately supports those claims.
+
+### `INVEST + VOICE`
+
+Financial evidence, forecast classification, required disclosure, quote fidelity, and uncertainty override habitual certainty, bravado, compression, or informality in the profile.
+
+When a confident profile uses `will require` for a necessary condition, name the concrete action each dependency must complete. Write `renewals to close` and `contracts to sign`, not a compressed noun list that leaves completion implicit. State the condition directly. Do not preface it with `one thing is certain` or another certainty claim merely to imitate the profile.
+
+Preserve the exact actor, present status, and dependency while applying rhythm. `Management targets` cannot become `we will achieve`. Unsigned renewals remain unsigned and uncommitted prospects remain uncommitted. A confident profile may use `will require` to state a necessary condition because the certainty belongs to the dependency, not the forecast outcome. Do not turn a recommended next research or financing step into `we will` unless an approved plan is supplied.
+
+### `INVEST + GEO/AEO`
+
+Apply written GEO/AEO only to indexable public assets. Public fundraising pages require current legal-route and page-level claim review. Private decks, meetings, diligence responses, and data-room assets do not inherit search formatting.
+
+### `FUNDRAISE + SELL`
+
+Do not combine primary modes. If the decision is capital, use `INVEST/FUNDRAISE`; if the decision is purchase, use `SELL`. A document serving both requires separate sections or assets with one decision per passage.
+
+## Legal and ethical boundaries
+
+Capital-raising communication can create legal obligations. Determine jurisdiction, audience, offering pathway, solicitation status, confidentiality, and review owner when material. Use current authoritative sources and qualified counsel. Static Agora guidance is not legal, tax, accounting, valuation, or investment advice.
+
+Truth and material omission review precedes persuasive optimization.
+
+Never invent or distort:
+
+- securities terms;
+- investor eligibility;
+- commitments or demand;
+- cap-table state;
+- historical financials;
+- forecasts or assumptions;
+- valuation support;
+- customer or partner relationships;
+- regulatory status;
+- risks, conflicts, or use of funds.
+
+Do not provide a personalized recommendation to buy or sell a security unless the task, authority, and applicable professional requirements support it. Diligence outputs identify evidence and uncertainty; they do not manufacture investment certainty.
+
+Confidential or personal information remains at the supplied authorization level. Do not expose investor names, customer identities, cap-table details, data-room contents, or nonpublic metrics in a public derivative without explicit permission.
+
+## Evaluation contract
+
+### Hard gates
+
+Reject any output that:
+
+- invents traction, commitments, term sheets, urgency, investor demand, market size, economics, or use-of-funds outcomes;
+- presents a historical result as forecast certainty;
+- presents a target, assumption, scenario, pipeline item, or verbal indication as actual or committed;
+- omits a supplied material risk, conflict, qualification, or use of funds;
+- uses a misleading category, inevitability, scarcity, or timing claim;
+- hides a valid weakness through reframing;
+- lets founder persuasion contaminate diligence or allocation;
+- invents a numeric decision threshold, probability, expected value, or financing trigger;
+- changes a supplied actor, population, sample property, evidence stage, or milestone into a broader claim;
+- invents a reply date where no process deadline exists;
+- implies that a deck, meeting format, warm introduction, talk ratio, or fixed duration causes funding;
+- exposes private or confidential material;
+- produces legal or investment advice beyond the supplied authority.
+
+### Quality dimensions
+
+Evaluate:
+
+- decision and route fit;
+- company and opportunity clarity;
+- evidence traceability;
+- claim-class fidelity;
+- risk visibility;
+- forecast and assumption transparency;
+- product and economic coherence;
+- ask and use-of-funds clarity;
+- objection integrity;
+- internal-forwarding strength;
+- next-decision clarity;
+- legal-route awareness;
+- first-read comprehension and natural channel fit.
+
+### Hostile readers
+
+- Founder: can explain company, proof, opportunity, ask, economics, and risks without inventing certainty.
+- Investor: can identify what is historical, current, committed, forecast, targeted, assumed, conditional, and unknown.
+- Counsel: can locate each offering claim and material omission for current review.
+- Partner: can forward the argument without founder narration repairing it.
+- Skeptic: can find a direct response to the strongest objection and the remaining weakness.
+- Allocator: can compare alternatives, constraints, expected value, timing, and uncertainty.
+
+## Evidence register
+
+| Rule family | Grade | Evidence and boundary |
+|---|---|---|
+| Securities-law route and current review | A | [SEC Capital-Raising Building Blocks](https://www.sec.gov/resources-small-businesses/capital-raising-building-blocks) identifies offering pathways, solicitation, compliance, and investor topics. It is staff guidance, not a substitute for applicable law or counsel. |
+| Venture decision variation and sourcing | B | [How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?](https://www.nber.org/papers/w22587) surveys institutional VCs and reports variation by stage, industry, geography, and practice. It does not establish universal founder tactics or current conversion rates. |
+| Current deck attention and section behavior | C | [DocSend seed-deck research](https://www.docsend.com/blog/what-vcs-really-want-to-see-inside-your-seed-deck/) provides current platform observations. Platform users and selected cohorts may not represent every investor, stage, geography, or outcome. Average review behavior is not a fixed drafting law. |
+| Mutual qualification and brief-opening procedure | HOUSE/PI | Useful workflow synthesized from bounded practitioner material. No causal funding effect, fixed duration, or talk ratio is claimed. |
+| Asset routing, objection handling, and rejection ledger | HOUSE | Governance procedures. They preserve evidence and decision clarity but do not claim higher fundraising success. |
+| Claim ledger, urgency, and commitment classes | HOUSE plus existing truth doctrine | Internal controls that prevent unsupported promotion. Current legal review still governs an actual offering. |
+| Category and defensibility procedures | HOUSE/PI | Decision frameworks with explicit failure conditions. They do not prove category creation, defensibility, or investment returns. |
+
+Do not promote views, likes, anecdotes, fundraising outcomes, or practitioner confidence into causal evidence. Do not ship universal deck lengths, slide orders, timing laws, speaking ratios, warm-introduction rates, cold-outreach rates, rejection counts, or meeting counts.