01
Venture appraises. It does not assay.
A first check is priced off what is legible before the meeting. Reserve time. An address book with loss-tolerant money in it. None of that says whether the company works.
Cupel Studio · Applications open
Keep your job.
Build the verdict.
Venture requires wealth three times before it evaluates anything. We removed the gates and kept the evaluation.
Venture asks for runway, friends-and-family money, and a warm introduction before it looks at the company. We ask for none of them. We build the company beside you at near-zero cost, and you leave knowing how it was built and sold.
You don't have to quit
15–25% common, set at intake
Founder holds the seat
Delaware C-corp
01 · The thesis
The proxies venture uses to allocate capital were built for a world that no longer exists.
02
Appraisal made sense when building was expensive.
When learning whether a company worked took a year and a million dollars, capital had to be allocated on judgment. The deck, the warm intro, the pattern match were a rational response to an assay nobody could afford to run.
03
Evidence is now cheaper than judgment.
A production product ships in weeks and the infrastructure is credited. Ninety days and about five thousand dollars buy a verdict from named buyers. When the test costs less than the deck, appraisal is the expensive part.
“We are not better guessers. We have stopped guessing.”
Includes what would prove us wrongThe full thesis →
02 · The cadence
Ninety days,
one verdict.
Long enough for an enterprise buyer to answer. Short enough for the answer to stay affordable.
The clock · Day 0 → Day 90+Click any stage
Tap a stage for the definition:
Days 1 – 3001
Build
A production product in front of one named enterprise buyer, with contract value on the table. Shipped, not demoed.
Cash cost: near zero
Days 31 – 6002
Sell
Studio-run outbound against a defined account list. The founder holds every buyer conversation and every close.
Named accounts, priced offers
Days 61 – 9003
Read
Revenue, slope, early usage, founder-led closes, and objection quality against a single threshold. $100K ARR is the point at which the question stops being subjective.
One threshold, one verdict
Day 90 · Report honestly
Four verdicts. The data selects.
The weekly cadence, the thirteen-week curriculum, and every artifact shippedInside the ninety days →
03 · What you keep
Even on a kill, nothing is taken back.
A negative verdict ends our operating role. You keep the company, the working assets, and the written methods behind them.
Infrastructure
Company-owned repository with full commit history and CI history.
+5 more
Sales assets
CRM with stages, owners, and the full account list scored and loaded.
+5 more
Product and data
Production code for the shipped wedge, deployed and instrumented.
+5 more
Operating docs
Deploy checklist and the on-call rotation for the first six months.
+5 more
Templates
icp-scoring.csv — account scoring with weighted disqualifiers.
+7 more
The full inventory, category by categoryEverything you keep →
05 · Day 90
All four verdicts, published.
A prediction is only right or wrong. A verdict has four settings, and we publish all of them.
GO· pre-seed ready
Revenue and slope enough to underwrite a pre-seed on a $4–6M post-money SAFE. We open the introductions. Seed comes later, off a bigger base.
GROW· commercial, seed comes later
Real revenue, but short of the $300K–$500K ARR a seed fund will lead. Compound another quarter and reopen introductions, or run it for cash flow.
PARK· signal early
The proposition holds; the market or the metric is not ready. Low-cost hold with a set re-evaluation date.
KILL· negative verdict
The wedge did not land. The company, the code, and every customer stay yours. So does the stack and the method, which is what makes attempt two cheaper. No clawback.
“A kill is a completed experiment. The expensive mistake is keeping the company alive to protect the original bet.”
06 · The operators
Built by operators, held by an investor.
The method requires the discipline of shipping and closing paying customers. It cannot be run from a term sheet, and it cannot be taught by anyone who has not done it.
Founder & Managing Partner
Jack Gierlich
i
Fifteen years of operating.
One company built as a founder and sold, two more sold as a VP and CMO. Regulated healthcare, where a single enterprise sale takes a year and every buyer conversation is earned.
ii
Both sides of the table.
Several years sourcing early-stage healthcare software into venture pipelines. Dozens of companies judged on the deck, because no evidence existed yet to judge them on.
Prior exits
Three prior exits across regulated healthcare. One built as founder, two through senior-operator roles (VP and CMO). All acquired. Full record →
Additional operating partners announced on joining.
06 · The economics
Every term, before the term sheet.
The studio is compensated on a positive commercial outcome. A negative verdict returns ninety days. Equity prices what we supply, so founders who bring buyer access pay less.
Pathway 115% · 20% on 180
Access
You know the buyers. You cannot build.
Pathway 220% · 25% on 180
Technical
You can build. You do not know the buyers.
Pathway 320% · 25% on 180
Match
You are one half. We find the other.
- Studio equity
- 15–25% common, minority, capped at 25%. Access 15% (20% on 180), Technical and Match 20% (25% on 180). Documented before Day 1.
- Build-value SAFE
- Studio build, GTM, and IP contribution converts to preferred at your priced pre-seed, on your investors’ terms. Absent a round, it does not convert.
- Build-cost recoup
- Paid only from the proceeds of a priced round, never from operating cash.
- Capped revenue share
- Small, capped, activated only after a priced round or sustained cash flow.
§ 01
§ 02
§ 03
§ 04
All 7 clauses, the equity matrix, and worked SAFE examplesThe full terms →
08 · Fit
Who the studio is for.
Apply if
- You would trade an eighteen-month maybe for a ninety-day answer.
- You can name the buyers. Or you can build. Or you'll pair with someone who can.
- You'd rather produce evidence (a paying customer, a usage curve) than a warmer intro.
- You can receive a negative verdict without treating it as a judgment on yourself.
Don’t apply if
- You want conviction in your vision more than a test of it.
- You want capital without an operating partner attached.
- You are building a lifestyle business, an agency, or a consultancy.
- You are pre-idea, non-technical, and unwilling to take a scoped wedge.
08 · The record
The record is public. Kills included.
Cohort 01 is the first. Every company lands on the record at Day 90 with its verdict, and nothing is announced before a real product sits in front of a real buyer.
“If we only publish wins, the record is marketing. If we publish the kills, it is evidence.”
Jack Gierlich
Managing Partner, Cupel Studio
Two Cohort 01 seats are held, two are open. A company appears on the record once a paying customer is live, alongside the metrics behind its verdict.
The full record →09 · Questions
On the record.
Venture prices a first check off things it can read before evaluating the company at all. We price it off evidence produced inside ninety days: named buyers, a paying contract, a usage curve.
15–25% common, minority, capped at 25%. Access pathway 15% on the 90, 20% on the 180. Technical and Match pathways 20% on the 90, 25% on the 180. Bringing an existing product with real usage reduces the figure by up to three points. Documented before Day 1.
None. Build stack, credits, sales team, and operators are compensated in studio equity. The founder contributes product and time.
The verdict determines the path. GROW if revenue is real but not venture-shaped. PARK if the signal is early. KILL if the wedge did not land, in which case the founder retains the company in full.
The founder. Board majority and CEO seat retained, domain in the company's name. The studio holds a minority preferred stake via the build-value SAFE and an observer seat.
The studio prepares the evidence package and opens the introductions. $100K ARR supports a pre-seed, typically $500K–$1.5M on a $4–6M cap. Seed is a separate event six to twelve months later, off a $300K–$500K ARR base. The founder runs both and closes both.
Cohort 01 · Reviewed weekly · Reply within 7 days
Ninety days
to an
answer.
A short application. An operator replies within seven days.
Apply →