Founder Assessment Governance Research Note

Founder Assessment Governance Research Note

Founder assessment occurs under a capital power imbalance. A consent form does not make refusal practical when the investor controls access to diligence or funding.

The investor policy should disclose purpose, construct, input, recipients, decision role, retention, refusal treatment, accommodations, access, correction, contest, human review, audit, and sunset.

The tool should address a named gap in existing diligence. Founder evidence already includes work history, customer calls, references, product decisions, board behavior, company records, and live interaction.

Automatic rejection and unpublished thresholds should be prohibited. The decision memo should state what the assessment added, which evidence agreed or disagreed, who reviewed it, and why the investment decision relied on it or did not.

A pilot should run in shadow mode. Partners record decisions before seeing the assessment. Evaluation then focuses on incremental information, contradictions, subgroup patterns, participant impact, and later calibration.

Company outcomes depend on market, timing, product, team, capital, regulation, luck, and investor behavior. Return performance cannot be attributed to one founder score without a rigorous design.

Refusal must not be treated as proof of low coachability or hidden risk.