IOSG Ventures’ Jocy conducted a nine-year investment review and compiled a “failed founder profile”: emotionally unstable, lacking Hunger, ego running out of control, token-first priorities, no Day 1 exit mindset, and insufficient experience across the full cycle.
The most valuable part of this checklist is that it turns “reading people” from mysticism into a checklist.
Early-stage projects are easily drawn to stories, backgrounds, and business plans, but what’s truly worth looking at are the danger signals in the founder themselves.
Especially “having an exit route” and “token-first.”
Someone who still has many comfortable options may not be willing to keep shouldering it when things get hardest; if the founder’s first priority in the beginning is tokens rather than the product and the problem itself, then when the cycle turns downward, their motives are more likely to be exposed.
Conversely, the ones truly worth paying attention to are often those who are obsessed with the problem, have been through the complete cycle, and dare to make non-consensus judgments.
In the primary market, what you’re investing in is never just an idea.
White papers can be changed, tokenomics can be changed, but the founder’s choices when they’re in a corner are hard to disguise.
Understanding how he would choose in the worst case matters far more than understanding the white paper.
The most valuable part of this checklist is that it turns “reading people” from mysticism into a checklist.
Early-stage projects are easily drawn to stories, backgrounds, and business plans, but what’s truly worth looking at are the danger signals in the founder themselves.
Especially “having an exit route” and “token-first.”
Someone who still has many comfortable options may not be willing to keep shouldering it when things get hardest; if the founder’s first priority in the beginning is tokens rather than the product and the problem itself, then when the cycle turns downward, their motives are more likely to be exposed.
Conversely, the ones truly worth paying attention to are often those who are obsessed with the problem, have been through the complete cycle, and dare to make non-consensus judgments.
In the primary market, what you’re investing in is never just an idea.
White papers can be changed, tokenomics can be changed, but the founder’s choices when they’re in a corner are hard to disguise.
Understanding how he would choose in the worst case matters far more than understanding the white paper.