Founder OS · Claim integrity
A claim without a source behind it is a claim you will be asked about.
This audit links every statement on every slide to whatever it rests on, then scores five dimensions. It is not a presentation-skills exercise, and it is not about making a deck more persuasive.
Pitch Integrity Audit
- Asks
- Does every claim in the story have evidence behind it?
- Decides
- Three sessions in order. A claim audit links each statement on each slide to its source. Focused practice follows on the weakest dimension, then a full rehearsal. It scores five dimensions: positioning, claim-to-evidence, financial model, preparation and delivery. The result is gated, not averaged: one red dimension makes the whole audit red.
- Result
- Green, amber or red, dimension by dimension.
The failure it is built to catch.
A deck is assembled over months from a dozen sources. A market size comes from a report nobody has reopened. A conversion rate comes from an early cohort that is no longer representative. A logo appears on a traction slide for a conversation that never became a contract.
None of it is dishonest. Each number arrived for a reason, and the reason has been forgotten. The founder cannot source them under questioning because the sourcing was never recorded.
The firm’s first rule is that every claim carries its source. This applies that rule to the document a founder is most likely to be examined on.
What is scored, and in what order.
Three sessions run in order: a claim audit first, then focused practice on whichever dimension came out weakest, then a full rehearsal.
- Positioning
- Whether the company is described in terms a listener can place, or in terms that require the founder to be in the room to interpret.
- Claim-to-evidence
- The core of it. Each statement on each slide is linked to its source, and a statement with no source behind it is marked as such.
- Financial model
- Whether the numbers shown can be produced on demand and reconciled with the model behind them.
- Preparation
- Whether the predictable questions have been worked through before the room, rather than encountered in it.
- Delivery
- Scored last and weighted as one dimension among five. A well-delivered unsourced claim is still an unsourced claim.
Gated, not averaged.
- The gate
- One red dimension makes the whole audit red. Four strong dimensions do not offset a fifth that fails, because the room will find the fifth.
- Green
- Every dimension holds. Claims are sourced, numbers reconcile, and the predictable questions have answers.
- Amber
- What is left when nothing is red and not everything is green — at least one dimension is thin. Usually fixable by producing evidence that exists but was never written down.
- Red
- At least one dimension fails. The named dimension is the work, and the deck is not the thing to edit first.
Common questions.
Is this about making the pitch more persuasive?
No. It is about whether the claims in it can be substantiated. A more persuasive unsourced claim is a larger problem, not a smaller one — persuasion raises the cost of being wrong.
Why does one red dimension fail the whole audit?
Because an average hides the thing that will be found. A deck scoring well on four dimensions and failing on claim-to-evidence will be examined precisely where it fails, and the average will be no help in that room.
What if a claim is true but we cannot source it?
It is marked unsourced, which is not an accusation. The work is to produce the evidence or to soften the claim to what can be shown. Both are better than discovering the gap under questioning.
Is this check available on its own?
It runs inside Founder OS, which programmes use during a Pilot Cohort with us. The claim-audit method — one row per statement, one column for its source — works on any deck without the software.
Founder OS runs this during a Pilot Cohort.
Programmes use it with their cohort, and Dineshwara reviews every cohort's results. If you want a read on your own company first, the founder readiness check is twelve questions and open to anyone.