Northstar Capital is building a new founder evaluation process for its seed investment team. Today, partners rely heavily on qualitative founder conversations, while the platform team wants a more standardized scorecard using market, traction, and product metrics. You are the program manager asked to design and launch a repeatable decision framework in 8 weeks for the next investment committee cycle.
The investment partners want flexibility and believe exceptional founders can look weak in early metrics. The data science lead wants a defensible, consistent model that reduces bias and improves decision speed. Legal and compliance want documentation for every investment recommendation, and the head of platform operations wants the process to fit within the current CRM workflow.
The pilot must cover 120 startup opportunities per quarter, use a team of 7 people, and stay within a $95,000 budget. No new headcount is approved. The framework must be ready before the next committee meeting in 56 days. Historical data is incomplete: only 40% of past deals have clean post-investment performance records. Partners can spend at most 45 minutes per founder on structured interviews.