SR005 Apps Reviewed: The 3 Signals That Get Startups In
In a roundtable conversation, a16z speedrun investors share the signals they value most, common mistakes, and plans to improve the application process for founders
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Our team recently completed our review of applications for SR005, which is set to kick off at the end of July. We considered over ten thousand startup pitches and under 0.5% were ultimately selected to join our startup program.
Throughout that process weâve spoken with many amazing founders, and one question keeps coming up: What makes an application really stand out? In other words, how can founders improve their app to increase the odds of getting selected for speedrun?
This week, we sat down with our investing team and asked:
What do you look for when reviewing applicants for SR?
What are common mistakes founders make that hurt their chances?
How do we plan to improve the apps process for founders for SR006?
The resulting conversation is presented below.
How We Evaluate Applications for a16z speedrun
RYAN RIGNEY (Marketing Partner, a16z speedrun): The question I hear most often from founders is how do I make my application stand out? Theyâre trying to understand what weâre looking for. I usually tell people it comes down to three things: The team, the TAM (total addressable market), and traction.
And the way I explain those terms is: âTeamâ is about proving you're the exact right people to pursue the idea, whether from your experience or because you've somehow gone super deep into âthe idea maze.â Then TAM is really just, like, is this a big, venture-scale opportunity? And having traction means youâve got some measurable proof that youâre already making progress toward product-market fit.
Is that basically how yâall think about it?
JOSH LU (General Manager, a16z speedrun): I would say that's right, but traction is number one, two, and three. And then itâs team. Then itâs TAM. Traction is important in the early stages because it tells us that you have velocity and that you're able to get positive feedback. Revenue traction is best. Growth traction and retention traction are second best.
And in today's world, itâs so easy to get a prototype going or some code down that basically no teams should be âpre-everythingâ anymore. Teams should have no excuse not to have something out there getting some sort of feedback.
MARCUS SEGAL (Visiting Partner, a16z speedrun): Unless itâs some deep tech thing, right?
JOSH: Sure, but even then, the very thinnest forms of traction can matter. Traction is just whatever validation you can get from the outside world. That's maybe the theme of this whole thing: what is the external validation you can give us in an application that allows us to rate it based on not just your word and your ideas? Traction is the hardest thing to fudge.
And then we care a lot about evaluating the team. What's really important is founder-market fit. Why are you the right team to do this?
ANDREW LEE (Partner, a16z speedrun): And founder-market fit can matter a lot for teams that are pre-product. If itâs a team thatâs been in the space for 20 years, making products, and they know the problem space well, itâs easier for us to trust they can do it.
For judging founder-market fit, it really comes down to two things. Why are you amazing? And then why is the problem you're working on important to you? And the thing is, you might change the problem youâre working on quite a bit, but as long as we can get a proof point that youâve done work on this and itâs an important thing you're taking seriously, then it sort of validates you as a team.
ROBIN GUO (Investment Partner, a16z speedrun): This is something that can be harder for solo founders, which is one of the reasons weâre encouraging people to apply with a co-founder. Iâve written about this a bit, but solo founders basically need to be full-stack builders. If you're going it alone, you can't afford to be blocked on anything. You need to build, sell, recruit, and fundraise, all by yourself. And if you have a team youâre just going to make progress on all these things more quickly. So when weâre judging teams, thatâs one of the big things we consider.
MARCUS: The other thing is, you could be pre-product but that doesn't mean that you don't have a waitlist or LOIs (letters of intent). If youâre talking to customers, that shows us hustle.
TROY KIRWIN (Investment Partner, a16z speedrun): We want signal that this is something that people want and that this is the team that will be able to get it in front of them fastest. In this AI era, velocity is everything. Getting out in front and building a brand is so important. Even if you donât yet have an MVP, posting a sizzle reel for your product or vision that goes viral and drives waitlist signups helps you check the box for traction. It also displays the teamâs strength in go-to-market.
ANDREW: Right, and on the B2B side another thing that's important is if youâve found a powerful lighthouse customer. Thatâs a great signal. To define that: a lighthouse customer is a customer that brings other customers in. But sometimes if there's not a good lighthouse customer, going deep in a narrow vertical can be really interesting.
MARCUS: There are other ways to get traction for B2B companies. Sometimes itâs a lighthouse customer, or maybe youâre going for a hundred small lights. Christmas lights, right?
The point is, you need to brag about things that are relevant, whether thatâs traction or your own qualifications. Sometimes in these applications people are saying stuff like âI was a D1 athlete!â Like⊠okay?
JOSH: You need to show experience in something directly related to the idea for the company. So I would look at your description of what you're building, your description of the team. And if those things didn't match, and youâre pre-everything, then I often donât make it much further in the review.
TROY: There are some markets where âoutsidersâ are better than âinsiders.â It probably wouldnât have been someone from the hotel industry to propose sleeping on air mattresses on random strangersâ apartment floors. So while I value founder-market fit in some categories, I also look for incredibly spikey individuals who can excel in any good market (and can find their way to a good market).
ANDREW: Yeah, a great example was how Square was a bunch of outsiders. Sometimes you need folks who have a âbeginnerâs mindâ when looking at a problem and havenât been jaded by the status quo. But those were also highly-competent, proven, repeat founders.
How to Approach Creating a Deck
RYAN: Another part of the application process people ask us about is the deck. How important are they? Whatâs the right way to think about your deck?
JOSH: It's a gut check on a founder's ability to tell a compelling story quickly. I think founders sometimes make the mistake of treating it like a memoir. You know, they tell their whole life story. But the purpose of the application is to convey all the important things a reviewer is looking for in as concise and digestible a way as possible. Anything beyond that doesn't help.
RYAN: How long is the best long deck? What's the upper limit?
JOSH: I don't think you need more than seven slides, honestly.
MARCUS: Fifteen is the longest you're going to get me to click through. Look, I go through the decks. I think decks matter, and I would say if founders don't have a deck their LinkedIn is gonna have to be way stronger.
ANDREW: Robin has a particular flow where he goes directly to the applicantâs LinkedIn, right?
ROBIN: Well, first I read the company description & traction, and then I read the team description and that usually gives me like 80 percent of the information Iâm looking for before moving on to their LinkedIn, and then the deck. In the first few steps of that process Iâm usually seeing issues that make me pass on the app: no traction, bad description, irrelevant team experience, that sort of thing.
JOSH: My process is similar to Robinâs. And I think the deck is really important. I donât know if Iâve scheduled any interviews where I didnât click the deck link.
TROY: I mainly look to the decks to get more details on the traction, if the applicant indicated they have traction in the application.
On Red Flags and Common Mistakes in Apps
RYAN: Weâve talked a lot about what we look for: traction, founder-market fit, and TAM. But what about common mistakes we see? What are some of the things that can really hurt an application?
ROBIN: Josh has one, which is that some people post a deck link but donât make it public access, so we have to request access.
JOSH: Yep.
MARCUS: I would add that it's okay to ask for our email address to know who got the deck. We understand your desire to know who's seeing your deck. Thatâs fine. But another common mistake I'd flag is when people only send us their Twitter instead of LinkedIn. You canât expect me to go and figure out who you are by reading your Twitter. Post the LinkedIn.
ROBIN: Another one is if the description is too short or too long. Itâs messy, or it's confusing, or it doesn't convey what the company is doing and why it's different.
MARCUS: It's like, come on people, drop it into ChatGPT. Tighten it up. Get it ready for human consumption
ANDREW: Have ChatGPT make it concise with Strunk and Whiteâs The Elements of Style as a reference. Itâll work wonders.
TROY: 100%. Take the advice of drafting a rĂ©sumĂ©: concise, punchy, use data where you can, etc. Absolutely no fluff. We are reviewing a lot of these. Donât bury the good stuff.
RYAN: Another thing Iâve noticed is people sending in tons and tons of super small updates that sort of drown out the important message. I don't know if it hurts you that much, but it certainly doesn't help, right?
MARCUS: Yeah. Or submitting multiple apps for the same thing, which isnât great. Submitting multiple apps for different companies is worse. We're not here to pick from your list of ideas. If you're not building something that you feel like you have to put into the world, then do not apply to speedrun.
ROBIN: Some people are dishonest about their traction, or they over-inflate it.
RYAN: How can you tell?
ROBIN: Usually itâs just obviously too high. If your D30 is 80%, you're either measuring it wrong or you're not being truthful.
MARCUS: Also, I think that sometimes people declare product market fit on 100 users. You might have signs of it, but thatâs not nearly enough.
ANDREW: A lot of people donât put their co-founder info. Theyâll say in the description that they have a team, but if I donât have a LinkedIn to check I donât know if itâs actually a solo founder.
MARCUS: I think whatâs happening there is a lot of people have a potential co-founder who is willing to join if the first founder can secure funding. So theyâre not wanting to put down someoneâs name if theyâre not fully committed.
ANDREW: Hmm. Yeah, maybe thatâs something to consider for an improvement we can make on our end.
Planned Improvements for the SR Apps Process
RYAN: So on that note, what are things we're doing to try to level up this process for founders? How do we want to make the application experience better?
ROBIN: There's a few things. One is, at some point in the future, we want a UI for applicants to look at to see where theyâre at in the process: sort of a Domino's pizza tracker. You know: Your application has been reviewed by one partner. Your application has been reviewed by two partners. Your application has not been reviewed yet, that sort of thing. That way people will be able to see where they are at in the funnel.
We also want to get back to people faster. For this past cycle, it took us three or four weeks to get back to some people, which is not ideal. We had two reviewers go through all the applications, and a ton came in during the final week. So weâre gonna get some better tools for stack-ranking and prioritizing applications.
RYAN: As I understand it, weâre also gonna build some tools so applicants can make updates to their applications manually, as well.
JOSH: Yep, at least up until the point that a human has reviewed their app.
RYAN: Great, well I think that covers it. Thanks for your time, guys.
Thatâs it for this week. Do you have any other questions about the applications process for speedrun? Let us know in the comments.
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This is amazing !!
Gold!