The deal,
on the page.
The thesis argues that wealth is a screen and warm introductions are a screen. If the deal itself is negotiated in private, it becomes a third screen. So the percentages and the instrument are published, in plain language, before you apply.
These numbers are the operating draft. The binding studio agreement, once signed, is the source of truth. If counsel changes wording before Cohort 01, this page is updated and dated below.
Two clocks. Different equity.
- · 90 days, full-time.
- · Founder holds the CEO seat.
- · Cupel absorbs infra and product build cost.
- · Verdict published at Day 90. GO, GROW, PARK, or KILL.
- · 180 days, part-time. Twenty hours a week, contractual.
- · You keep your job while the trial runs.
- · Cupel carries the majority of buyer calls during work hours.
- · Switch to 90 anytime before the verdict; equity drops to 15%.
The employed track is priced higher for two reasons, both mechanical. First, it runs twice as long, so Cupel's operator hours per company roughly double. Second, because you are at a day job during the workday, Cupel carries the majority of buyer calls, intros, and follow-ups during the hours buyers are actually reachable. The extra ten points are what those hours cost.
This is deliberate: the wealth screen would say "quit or you can't play." Cupel 180 refuses that trade, and prices it honestly instead. If you can quit, take 90 and keep the ten points. If you can't yet, take 180 and buy the runway with equity, not savings.
Priced separately.
Capped at 25%.
Every founder enters through one or more pathways. Each pathway addresses a specific screen venture uses. The percentages stack up to the cap; they never negotiate down in private.
- · You bring named buyers we can reach without a warm intro.
- · Replaces the warm-intro screen: your list is the intro.
- · This is the cheapest pathway because access is the scarce input.
- · You bring the ability to build the product.
- · Cupel supplies buyer access and the operating cadence.
- · Priced above Access because access is harder to source than code.
- · You bring one half of the founding pair (technical or operator).
- · Cupel matches the other half from the bench inside the cohort.
- · Priced at Technical, because matching is closer to sourcing than to building.
Cupel 180 adds five points on top of the pathway pricing (still capped at 25%). This is not an extra fee; it is the mechanical cost of running the program at part-time for six months instead of full-time for three, as described above.
No single founder pays more than 25% common at intake, regardless of pathway stack or track. If the arithmetic would exceed 25%, the excess is dropped, not renamed. This is the ceiling, not a suggestion.
You do not pay to build.
Cupel covers the infrastructure and engineering cost of getting a production product in front of your first buyers during the trial. Founder cash out of pocket is near zero. This is the second answer to the wealth screen: not "we'll subsidize your salary," but "the product itself is not something you have to afford."
What "near zero" means, concretely: no build fee, no seat fee, no monthly platform charge during the trial. Founders cover their own living expenses (or, on Cupel 180, keep their job to cover them). If a paid third-party tool is required for a specific buyer test, it is discussed and approved in writing before spend.
- · Production build hours during the trial window.
- · Hosting, data, and standard SaaS infra, stacked from credit programs (up to $500K).
- · AI compute for product features, at studio rates.
- · Design and copy for the buyer-facing surface.
- · Founder salary. Cupel does not pay founders during the trial.
- · Legal for third-party contracts outside the studio agreement.
- · Paid ads or outbound tools. Distribution during the trial is warm.
Cash in, at the verdict.
Not at intake.
The build-value SAFE is the instrument Cupel uses if a company wants operating cash at Day 90 (or Day 180) instead of going straight to a priced round. It is optional. Companies that hit GO with existing revenue and outside term sheets can skip it.
Post-money valuation cap. Set at intake, not at the verdict, so the number cannot be lowered after the evidence appears.
Standard discount to the next priced round. Whichever converts to a lower price for Cupel (cap or discount) applies.
If another investor gets better SAFE terms before the next priced round, Cupel's SAFE matches. Founders do not get penalized for being early.
In plain language: at Day 90, if a company wants Cupel to write a check alongside the verdict, Cupel does it on this SAFE. The cap is fixed at intake, so the price cannot move against the founder as evidence accumulates. Founders keep the option to raise from anyone else, on any terms, at the same time.
Non-negotiable
within track.
The point of publishing the percentages is that they stop being a screen. If Cupel cut side deals, founders with better networks or louder representation would get better terms, and the whole thesis would collapse. The published numbers are the numbers. If a specific pathway does not apply to you, you do not pay for it. If it does, you pay what it costs.
What can change: the track (90 vs 180), the pathway stack (Access, Technical, Match), and whether the SAFE is used at the verdict. Those are choices Cupel and the founder make together, before signature, using the same public numbers.
This page is a draft. Contractual language will replace it before Cohort 01 closes; the numbers above will not. Site terms of use →