Pre-Mortem Template for Founders

A structured template to help you find your startup fatal flaws before investors or the market does.

5 min read

Optimism is a founder's greatest asset, but also their most dangerous blind spot. A pre-mortem is the process of intentionally looking for why you will fail.

The 15-Minute Framework

Run this exercise with your co-founders once a month. Use this specific sequence:

  1. 01

    Establish the Failure

    Assume it is 12 months from now and the company is dead. You have €0 in the bank and no remaining customers.

  2. 02

    Individual Brainstorm

    Spend 5 minutes writing down every possible reason for failure. No idea is too small or too "unlikely".

  3. 03

    The Truth Map

    Group the reasons into Market, Team, Product, and Distribution categories.

  4. 04

    The Mitigation Plan

    Identify the top 3 risks and assign a specific action to mitigate them in the next 30 days.

Key Insight

The goal isn't to be pessimistic; it's to be prepared. If you know the 3 things that could kill you, you can stop them. If you don't know them, they'll hit you when it's too late.

Common Categories

Most startups fail for one of these reasons:

- High CAC that doesn't scale.
- Building a product nobody actually wants to pay for.
- Running out of cash before hitting the next milestone.

Stop guessing. Start knowing.

Apply this analysis to your pitch

Our AI runs Pre-Mortem, Fermi, and Inversion models on your specific idea. You get a structured teardown of every assumption you're making.

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