Why this book exists
At pre-seed and seed, the evidence is rarely complete. Revenue may be too early to mean much. The product may still be unfinished. The market itself may be changing.
Yet investors still have to decide which companies deserve more attention.
Most startup evaluation frameworks break a company into separate factors: team, market, product, traction, timing, competition. Each factor is assessed individually and then combined into an overall judgment.
Before the Metrics starts from a different premise:
A startup is not simply the sum of its attributes. What matters is how those attributes interact.
A startup is a configuration
The same attribute can mean different things in different configurations.
Weak early traction may indicate weak demand. In another company, the same weak traction may coexist with customers who tolerate significant friction because the underlying problem is unusually painful
An unconventional founder may look weak against a conventional benchmark and still be exceptionally well matched to a specific market.
Founder ↔ Problem ↔ Product ↔ Market ↔ Timing ↔ Evidence
Configuration-based judgment asks:
Do the important attributes reinforce one another strongly enough to create an exceptional company — or do attractive individual signals hide a structural weakness?
Who this book is for
Before the Metrics is written for venture investors, analysts, angels, accelerator teams, and founders who need to understand startup quality before conventional metrics become reliable.
It is particularly relevant to people working with pre-seed and seed companies, unconventional founders, cross-border startups, and markets where the available evidence is incomplete or difficult to benchmark.
About the author
Arman Kassym is a venture analyst, entrepreneur, and author who has evaluated more than 1,000 early-stage startups.
Before focusing on venture analysis, he founded and led three companies and co-founded a business association in Kazakhstan. His work focuses on early-stage startup judgment, cross-border venture analysis, and analytical systems for decision-making under uncertainty.
Read Before the Metrics
A Configuration-Based Method for Early-Stage Startup Judgment.
A practical guide to understanding startup quality before conventional metrics become reliable.
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