I’m a solo GP at Incisive, writing $250k-$500k checks Pre-Seed to support B2B founders. After 20 years of investing and over 300 investments, it is more clear than ever that pre-seed investing isn’t about spreadsheets and market projections—it’s about people and pattern recognition.
Business Insider put me on their list of 100 best early-stage. investors recently. The numbers tell part of the story: 74% of my portfolio companies go on to raise seed rounds, compared to the 30% industry average. My sweet spot is $3M-$14M valuations in fully funded rounds of $1-2M. But the real story is in how I make these decisions. Here is how I gain conviction when there is very little information about a company.
What I Look For: It’s Simpler Than You Think
After two decades, my conviction framework has become surprisingly straightforward. I’m looking for two things:
A two-person founding team with the right configuration. I need a businessperson who deeply understands the customer’s problem—not theoretically, but viscerally. Someone who’s lived it. And I need a technical person who can actually build the product. That’s it. That’s the core.
Another way to think about it is, I look for:
The Hustler. A sales-forward insider who’s lived the customer pain for years.
The Hacker. A builder who can turn that pain into shipped code before lunch.
Everything else is a bonus. Other known investors in the round? Great. Customer validation through my personal network? Even better. But I can move forward with just those two founders if they’re the right two.
A market with a B next to it. I need to see billions in potential, but honestly, the team quality matters more than any market analysis. Markets shift. Teams don’t.
My thesis is simple: I invest in B2B software that reduces friction at scale. If you’re making something complicated easier, and you can do it for thousands of customers, I want to hear from you.
A distribution trick. Software is easier than ever to build. Today the differentiator is how do you get your first 100 customers? Teams that come with some distribution trick, customer network, or GTM wedge are more interesting than teams that “Built it and hope they come.”.
Real Portfolio Examples
Let me walk you through some recent actual investments, as that’s more useful than theory.
Procurable.ai. I met a VP of Supply Chain with six years of experience who’d teamed up with an AI/ML technical co-founder. They were solving his personal pain point around supply chain visibility. No traction when I invested. Pure idea stage. But the founder had lived the problem for six years—he knew exactly what was broken and why. I was the first investor to back his idea.
CivicIQ was founded by a person whose parents struggled with local government RFP processes. The data on the $1.2T local government spend (cities, counties, school districts) is fragmented, unstructured, and living in PDFs. What made it investable was the AI/LLM unlock—this made a previously impossible database suddenly buildable with AI tools. While a solo founder, he understood the business, wrote most of the initial code, and built a team to execute very quickly. In this case business and technical was the same person, but he quickly recruited additional tech people to build the product.
Grw AI is one of my favorite origin stories. I met the founders at a poker table during SaaStr. One founder had run a personal coaching business for 10 years. He was frustrated because the business was expensive for customers and hard to scale, as it required 1:1 human coaching. The business founder teamed up with a college buddy technical co-founder, and now they’re scaling that coaching with 24/7 AI coaches for SDRs. Precursor Ventures was in the round, which gave me additional conviction.
Nuel.AI is where I led the pre-seed. The second time, the founder went through the Purdue Ag Accelerator and met his co-founder, who had a deep understanding of the ag business and a third technical founder to build the product. Bringing real-time supply chain data to the ag supply chain runs on spreadsheets without real-time data. At the investment, they had 5 live POCs and contracts close to closing. Hustle Fund and Right Side Capital were co-investors.
Quintess AI paired a founder with 10 years of Paris subway maintenance experience with an AI technical co-founder. They’re building voice agents for 60-year-old mechanics who need to document their work. Geek Ventures, with whom we had previously invested, made the introduction.
Playmaker Sports came from someone with 10 years at Anheuser Busch handling their $400M sports sponsorship budget. She teamed up with a CTO she had worked with before. They’re going after the $100B brand-to-team market that currently runs on spreadsheets and emails. Precursor Ventures was in this one, too.
Legix.ai had $100k ARR when I invested. The founders spent two years doing customer research on accounting capacity constraints. Business CEO with a deep understanding of the customer, paired with a CTO to build. The moment I knew it was real? I asked my personal bookkeeper about the problem, and he immediately said, “How soon can I sign up?” Outlander Ventures co-invested.
How I Actually Make Decisions
My timeline typically ranges from one to three months, but usually lasts about two weeks. Current valuations for vertical SaaS companies with early revenue are running $6-10M at the pre-seed stage.
My diligence checklist is short: CEO references, customer references, and calls with co-investors. That’s it. I’m not building financial models. I’m verifying that this person is who they claim to be, and that customers genuinely care about this issue.
After the investment, I stay in touch with the founders and support them through their next round. I don’t take board seats (I use SAFEs), but I’m more involved than a typical pre-seed investor because of the check size.
The Defensibility Question Everyone Gets Wrong
Here’s the truth about AI-enabled B2B software: AI tools make building easier, but they also make copying easier. So how do you defend?
- Proprietary data. You own the exhaust, you own the moat.
- Workflow depth. The deeper you sit in the org chart, the harder you are to rip out.
- Ecosystem hooks. Integrations create switching friction (and M&A interest).
Many companies start as features and aim to become platforms. When that platform evolution fails, i hope your feature is deep enough that a platform wants to buy you. Take Legix.ai — they are starting as a QuickBooks add-on. If that goes well, they may earn the right to do more, even replace QuickBooks over time. That’s the right strategic arc.
What This Actually Means
Pre-seed investing is about backing people who’ve lived a problem long enough to understand it completely, paired with someone who can build the solution. Everything else—the market size, the co-investors, the early traction—is validation. But the core bet is always on those two people.
If you’re building B2B software that reduces friction at scale, and you fit this profile, reach out. I write $250k- $500k checks, I move quickly, and I actually understand what you’re building because I’ve been doing this for 20 years.
The Quick-Dirty Checklist Before You Ping Me
- Two founders, complementary résumés (business + Technical), prior history together.
- Personal story that makes the problem visceral.
- Early proof the market wants the thing (emails, LOIs, usage—pick one).
- Clear path to $1M ARR on < $2M raised.
- A data advantage that compounds while you sleep.
- A distribution trick, clear path to first 100 customers.
Hit all six, and my reply isn’t “Maybe”—it’s the schedule link attached.
The best investments I’ve made all had this in common: a founder who couldn’t not build this product because they’d lived the problem too long, paired with someone who could actually build it, riding some new technical unlock in a market big enough to pay.
