Co-founder due diligence, in under fifteen minutes.
A solo founder considering a co-founder. Or two solo-bootstrapped operators considering a merger. Before signing the partnership agreement and handing over 30% of the cap table, here is the workflow that compresses a VC's pre-term-sheet diligence into one fifteen-minute report.
The scenario
You have been solo-bootstrapping for two years. The product works. Customers are paying. You have hit the ceiling of what one person can ship. A prospective co-founder has emerged from your network — introduced by a mutual friend, met at a conference, or surfaced through a community. Four months of conversations later, the partnership agreement is on the table.
The decision feels good. Your prospective co-founder is sharp, friendly, ships fast, and seems aligned. The friend who introduced you vouches.
What you don't know:
- What did your prospective co-founder actually ship at their prior companies? Marketing claims versus production evidence.
- How did their prior partnerships end? Clean exits, acrimonious departures, lawsuits, gag orders?
- Are there public-reputation flags — controversies, public-statement patterns, prior litigation — that would surface in a VC's diligence later but not in two coffee meetings now?
- What does their public commitment to the domain look like? Aligned with your thesis, or recently swerved into it?
- Who in their network would give you a back-channel reference today, before you sign?
The traditional answer is "you'll know when you sit together for six months". By then, you've handed over equity. The MentionFox answer is one report that compresses the public-record signal into one fifteen-minute decision surface.
Why this matters
Founder breakups are expensive. Cap-table cleanup. Legal fees. Product-team disruption. Customer-retention impact. Most LP-side post-mortems on bad VC investments trace back to founder issues that were knowable at deal time. The same logic applies, with even higher stakes, to a solo founder evaluating a co-founder: you are about to hand over more of your cap table to this person than any VC will ever own.
The signals that matter most:
- Prior shipping evidence. Did this person actually ship products to real users at real scale, or is the resume LinkedIn-pretty but production-thin?
- Exit pattern. Three prior shutdowns and one sale to friends-and-family acquirer is one pattern. Two clean shutdowns and one $200M acquisition is another. The Founder Vetting Report categorizes every prior outcome.
- Founder-market fit. Does the prospective co-founder have a pre-existing public commitment to your domain, or is the thesis a recent swerve?
- Public-reputation flags. Anything in the public record (news, court filings, public-statement controversies) you would want to know before signing.
- Network paths. Who can give a back-channel reference today, before you sign? Two-degree connections in your existing network are gold.
What to verify on a prospective co-founder
- Prior shipping evidence. Crunchbase prior-company outcomes plus GitHub contribution depth answer this in 90 seconds.
- Exit pattern. Categorized prior outcomes — shutdown, pivot, acquired, IPO, ongoing.
- Career arc and trajectory. Roles and dates. Pattern detection on trajectory shape.
- Founder-market fit signal. Pre-existing public commitments to the domain, podcast appearances, blog posts, prior shipped work.
- Co-founder and team history. Did they work with their prior co-founders before that company? How did those teams compose and end?
- Public-reputation flags. News, court filings, public-statement controversies. Severity-ranked findings or an honest "no flags found".
- Network and warm-intro paths. Two-degree connections in your existing network. Likely back-channel references.
- Pitch readiness. Public-deck signals, public traction, narrative coherence — useful if you'll be raising together.
What a solo founder's fifteen minutes looks like
Open the Founder Vetter
Type the prospective co-founder's name. Confirm the right person from the disambiguation card. The People Finder index resolves to the canonical record before any synthesis runs.
Generate Vetting Report
Click the full Vetting Report tier (200 credits). Twelve sections. Returns in 5-8 minutes. While it runs, finish your coffee.
Vetting Report returns
Twelve sections, 2,500-5,500 words. Career arc, exit history, founder-market fit, public-reputation flags, network paths. Every claim cited to a public URL.
Read sections 3 (exit history), 4 (career arc), 9 (public-reputation flags), 10 (network paths)
The four highest-stakes sections for a co-founder decision. Anything surprising? Cross-reference with what your prospective co-founder told you in interviews.
Identify two warm-intro candidates from section 10
Two-degree connections in your existing network. Send a Slack message asking for a confidential back-channel reference call.
Decide
Either schedule the partnership-agreement signing call, raise specific questions with your prospective co-founder, or pause the conversation for a week of additional reflection.
The outcomes — what the report tells you
Strong signal — proceed
Prior shipping evidence is solid. Exit pattern is clean. Founder-market fit is genuine (pre-existing public commitments to the domain). No public-reputation flags. Two warm-intro candidates in your existing network. Schedule the signing.
Mixed signal — surface the questions
Two prior shutdowns where the public record is thin on outcome detail. Career arc shows a recent pivot into the current domain. No public-reputation flags. Surface the shutdowns and the pivot directly with your prospective co-founder; their responses are signal.
Yellow signal — get a back-channel reference first
Prior shipping is real, but the report flags one historical controversy or one prior partnership that ended in public dispute. Run two back-channel reference calls before signing.
Red signal — pause
Multiple prior partnership disputes, public-statement controversies, or current litigation. The signing decision is not "no" — but it requires explicit conversation with the prospective co-founder about each item before proceeding.
Pricing for this use case
One Founder Vetting Report
Decision-quality co-founder verification.
200 credits
Twelve sections, 2,500-5,500 words. Returns in 5-8 minutes. The right tier before signing a partnership agreement and handing over equity.
One Founder Snapshot — early-stage screen
Top-of-funnel screen before deeper conversations.
30 credits
One-page executive summary with founder-market fit score, exit pattern, and top public-reputation flags. Returns in 60 seconds. Right tier when you're early in conversations and want a fast triage.
Credits are platform-wide. A Pro plan includes a credit grant monthly; pay-as-you-go credit packs are available. See pricing for current plans.
Related
Founder Vetting Reports → Executive Vetting Reports → Use case: VC Due Diligence → Use case: Hiring a Board Member →