The mistake almost every founder check makes
Most background tools answer a question nobody can actually answer: is this person legitimate? They gather what is written about someone, weigh it, and return a judgement about the human being.
That framing fails for a structural reason. "Legitimate" is not a fact any register records. What registers record is narrow and specific: this named person filed as an officer of this issuer; this licence number is active in this state; this company has this director; this case has this outcome. Each of those settles one claim. None of them settles a person.
Claim-level verification is the method that follows from taking that seriously. You stop asking whether someone is legitimate and start asking, for each thing they told you, which public body would know — and then you ask that body.
Step 1 — Rewrite the pitch as testable claims
A claim is testable when a register could confirm it or fail to confirm it. Most of what appears in a bio is not.
| Not a claim | A claim | Why the difference matters |
|---|---|---|
| "Serial entrepreneur" | "Founder and CEO of [named company]" | Only the second names an entity a register can be asked about. |
| "Ex-Goldman" | "Held a registered securities role at [named firm] until 2019" | Registration is recorded; "ex-" is not. |
| "Published researcher" | "Author of [named paper] in [named journal]" | A specific work has a record; a reputation does not. |
| "Clean record" | "No securities enforcement action against them" | The second is a search somebody can actually run. |
If a sentence cannot be turned into a search, it cannot be verified, and saying so plainly is more useful than scoring it.
Step 2 — Send each claim to the register that settles it
Each kind of claim has one authority. Corroboration from elsewhere raises confidence; it never substitutes for the body that actually keeps the record.
1Officer or director of a US public company → SEC insider filings
These filings exist precisely to record that a named person holds an officer, director or ten-percent-holder relationship with a named issuer. A filing lists both the reporting person and the company, so it is the regulator's own statement of the tie — not a name appearing near a company in some article. This is the strongest confirmation available for a public-company role.
2Broker, adviser or securities professional → FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC adviser register
Both are enumerative: everyone licensed appears, so an absence is meaningful in a way it is not for most registers. They also record disclosure events — customer disputes, regulatory actions, terminations — which is often the material fact.
3Company directorship outside the US → the national companies register
For UK companies, Companies House officer records are definitive and free. Most jurisdictions maintain an equivalent. This is the private-company answer that the United States simply does not have.
4Licensed profession → the licensing body, not an aggregator
Doctors, lawyers and accountants are licensed by named bodies that publish searchable registers. Aggregator sites that restate this data lag it and lose the disciplinary detail. Go to the board.
5Research, authorship and academic standing → ORCID and the published record
ORCID ties a researcher to their published works. It is voluntary, so an absence proves nothing at all — which is exactly the sort of limitation a verification report has to state rather than quietly treat as a negative.
6Litigation and enforcement history → court records
Court collections are extensive but incomplete, and names repeat constantly. A case naming someone of the same name is a lead to run down, never a finding.
7Private-company role → the company's own website
There is no register of private-company executives in the US. The strongest available evidence is a page on the company's own domain naming the person in the role claimed. It is weaker than a register and should be labelled as what it is.
Step 3 — Record the search, not just the result
A verdict that cannot be reproduced is an opinion with a badge on it. Every claim should carry the exact search performed and a link that runs it again, so the person reading the report can confirm it themselves in under a minute. This is the difference between cited due diligence and a score out of a hundred.
It also forces an uncomfortable discipline: if you cannot write down the search, you did not really check.
Step 4 — Grade each claim on its own
Four verdicts are enough, and each one means something different about what you should do next.
The honest default: never assert that a person is fake
This is the principle that separates a verification tool from a reputation weapon. When a register does not list someone, there are at least four ordinary explanations before dishonesty: the register is not a complete list of everyone in that field; the person is recorded under a different spelling or a former name; the role is at a private company that no register covers; or the search itself was blocked or incomplete on the day.
So a failed search produces could not verify, with the search printed so you can repeat it — never "unverified person", never a risk score, never an implication. Only a register that positively records something incompatible with the claim can support a contradiction, and that is a very different and much rarer finding.
The same discipline applies to what was not checked. A report should name every register it did not query and why, because an unchecked register is not a clean result, and a report that hides its gaps is more dangerous than one that admits them.
A worked verdict
Here is what a single claim looks like when it has been through this process. The claim is a matter of public record and the confirmation is positive — which is the only kind of named-person verdict that belongs on a public page.
Claim: Brian Armstrong holds an officer role at Coinbase.
What this method cannot do
- It cannot verify identity. No public register maps a living person to an entry. Every name-and-role check tops out at partially verified for this reason.
- It cannot prove a negative. Most registers are not complete lists, so absence is not evidence.
- It cannot cover private companies in the US. There is no register. The company's own site is the best available and should be labelled as weaker.
- It cannot settle character. Registers record filings, licences and outcomes. Judgement is still yours — the method exists to make sure the facts underneath it are real.
Check a founder's claims now
Paste a name and role, an email address, a pitch, or a link. Source Check splits it into claims, sends each to the register that settles it, and returns a cited verdict per claim — including everything it could not check and why.
Run the check →
Every verdict names the register and prints the search. See pricing for what a run costs.
Common questions
How do you verify a founder's claims?
Split what you were told into separately testable claims, send each to the one public register that settles it, and record a verdict per claim with the exact search performed. The output is one cited verdict per claim, not a single score.
What is claim-level verification?
Grading each assertion separately against the register that settles that specific kind of assertion, instead of producing one overall judgement about a person. An aggregate score hides which claim failed, and the claim that failed is the only part that changes a decision.
Can you prove a founder is lying?
Almost never, and an honest tool does not try. A register that fails to list someone can mean the claim is false, or that the register is incomplete, or that the person is recorded differently. That is why the correct verdict is "could not verify" rather than an accusation.
Which register verifies that someone is an officer of a company?
For a US public company, SEC insider filings — Forms 3, 4 and 5 — record that a named person holds an officer, director or ten-percent relationship with a named issuer. For a UK company, Companies House. For a private US company there is no register, and the company's own website is the strongest available evidence.
Why can't identity itself be verified?
No public register maps a person in front of you to an entry. A register can confirm that someone of that name holds a role; it cannot confirm you are speaking to that someone. A report claiming full identity verification from public records is overstating what public records can do.