Self-assessment
Work through a checklist.
Tick, count, and get a read on what the pattern indicates.
Answer as it is
Nothing is stored. Nothing is sent.
Do it twice
The second count is the useful one.
Complete it, then have someone with no position in the outcome complete it about you — a co-investor, an advisor, a spouse. The point of the second person is not their expertise. It is that they are not the one who has to be right.
Where the two counts differ by more than two, the gap between them is more interesting than either number, and it is usually the more useful thing to bring to a call.
Prefer paper, or want to hand it to someone? The printable versions are the same document with the same fields, and they are fillable on screen too.
What this is not
The distinction matters more than it sounds.
A checklist tells you which instrument you need. It is answered from memory, by one person, in ten minutes, and nothing in it is verified.
An assessment answers a different question — should this position be taken, at what size, against what reserve — across twenty-four scored dimensions, each carrying an evidence grade recording where the evidence came from rather than how good the news was. Three weeks, commissioned by the fund.
Use this to decide what to ask for. Do not use it to decide whether a company is fundable.