D2
Entitlement is resolved server-side, never client-flippable
verified
- Basis:
- the entitlement endpoint exists and resolves account access on the server, checked directly in the codebase
- Method:
- grep -n "account/me" app.js
- Verified:
- 2026-07-26
↑ back to §3
D3
No product renders a recurring AI brief in the user's own visual style
could-not-find
- What we checked:
- the current market for AI daily-briefing / personalized-email products, 2026-07-26
- What we found:
- brand-consistency tools (keeping a company's own colors/logo steady across generated assets) and house-styled briefings from large platforms, none that render in the recipient's own visual identity
- Honesty note:
- an honest "we looked and didn't find it": not proof that nothing exists anywhere
↑ back to §8
D5
Solo founders raise at valuations near-identical to teams
verified
- Finding:
- dilution nearly identical between solo- and multi-founder companies through 2024; valuations nearly identical by Series A, with a mild bias against solo founders specifically at Priced Seed
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-26
↑ back to §9.5
D6
"the software slump is proving that code alone was never a real moat"
verified
- Attribution:
- quoted CEO of an AI-agent developer-tooling startup, on the public-market SaaS selloff (individual not named on this page by house policy)
↑ back to §10.9
D7
AI compresses build time, not the time for things to actually happen
verified
- Attribution:
- an investor at Quiet Capital, on defensibility in the AI era (individual not named on this page by house policy; paraphrased rather than quoted at length)
↑ back to §10.9
D8
Berkus method: $500K classic per-factor cap; regional adjustment sanctioned
verified
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-26
↑ back to §10
D9
Scale receipts: commits, files, widgets, SKUs, gates, law sections
verified
- First → latest commit:
- 2026-06-26 → 2026-07-26
- Commits:
- 1,092
· - Method:
- git rev-list --count HEAD
- Tracked files:
- 3,739
· - Method:
- git ls-files | wc -l
- Backend size:
- 12,147 lines
· - Method:
- wc -l app.js
- Registered widgets:
- 43
· - Method:
- counted entries in the WIDGETS registry array
- Registered SKUs:
- 23
· - Method:
- counted entries in the STRIPE_PRICES map
- Law sections:
- 69
· - Method:
- grep -c "^## [IVXL]" CLAUDE.md
- Machine gates:
- 12
· - Method:
- counted gate-/guard- scripts in the scripts directory
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-26 re-run live against this repository while building this page
↑ back to §9.5
D10
Pre-seed pre-money reference point: ~$7.7M
could-not-find
- Note:
- We downloaded and read the actual PDF. The string "$7.7" is genuinely in that chart's cluster of stacked value labels for six series (Pre-seed/Seed/A/B/C/D+). but the chart's own Pre-seed line sits within a pixel of $0 on a $0–1,000 axis at its 2025 endpoint, overlapping the Seed dot with no distinguishable number of its own, so we could not confirm $7.7 is specifically the Pre-seed value rather than another series or year in that cluster. Carta's own State of Pre-Seed report, the more likely original source for a quarterly pre-seed figure, returned a 403 on direct fetch and could not be corroborated via secondary coverage either. Kept as an honest reference point, not a sourced fact.
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-26
↑ back to §10
D11
Seed post-money median $20M / median raise $4M
verified
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-26
↑ back to §10
D12
Cost-to-duplicate estimate: $1.5–2.5M
derived
- Method:
- standard cost-to-duplicate heuristic (replacement engineering effort × loaded cost). a widely-taught early-stage valuation approach, not a single cited source
- Inputs shown:
- 8–12 engineers × 12 months, shown alongside the figure in §10
- Label:
- explicitly presented as a floor, not a center estimate
↑ back to §10