Sources, a cleaner memo, and a number that couldn't back itself up

The read cites its sources now

Every claim in a read now shows where it came from, so you could forward the memo to a co-investor without vouching for a number yourself. I tested it twice before turning it on.

• ·Every externally verifiable claim gets a source next to it
• ·Founder-stated figures get a dagger, so a deck claim is never mistaken for one Verdict checked
• ·A claim only counts as sourced when a real outside source exists

The memo got rebuilt, verdict-first

A cleaner order, less noise, and the return case shown more than one way.

• ·Verdict first, then the scorecard, then the evidence
• ·Signal cards went black and white, so the grade colors are the only color that still means anything
• ·The return case now shows bear, base, and bull, not one rosy line
• ·The at-a-glance summary dropped two rows that were not earning their space

An ARR number with nothing behind it

A deck this week put an ARR figure on the title slide and never backed it up. Nowhere. No customers, no revenue schedule, nothing to back into it. The read flagged it as the founder's word and nobody else's, which is what the first investor will say too. Maybe it's real. But a big number with nothing behind it doesn't make anyone lean in. It makes them wonder what else is soft.

People are coming back

Two things I was glad to see this month, and the second matters more to me than any feature we shipped.

• ·More than 4 in 10 founders who run a read come back and upload a second, reworked deck
• ·One fund now tells its founders to run their deck through Verdict before the first call

TRY IT

Got a live deck? Run it through this version. The sources and the flags are the part worth seeing, and the first read is free.