Week 1, Learn · Day 1 of 30
Day 1: Commit velocity
The simplest acceleration signal, 14-day vs 90-day ratio.
Day 1 in one paragraph: Commit velocity tells you whether the engineering team is shipping more in the last 14 days than they have on average over the last 90. Sustained acceleration precedes hiring, which precedes a fundraise. You will spend about five minutes, end with a concrete artifact, and the whole curriculum stays free at this URL permanently.
Where this day sits in the 30
Week 1 teaches the six atomic signals one at a time, each on the org you picked on day one. Day 1 of 30 sits 3% of the way through, in week 1, learn, one of four one-week phases. This day also carries a bonus exercise for anyone with extra time. Everything in this challenge is built from public GitHub signals, the same data that powers the weekly deal-flow feed, and the day's lesson is worth roughly €79 in equivalent consulting time by the anchoring we use across the curriculum.
Where this starts
Pick one startup before you read further. Any one. A founder you met, a company you almost-invested in, a portfolio org you want to monitor. Have its GitHub URL ready, every signal in the following six days runs against the same org you pick today.
Why this signal matters
Commit velocity tells you whether the engineering team is shipping more in the last 14 days than they have on average over the last 90. Sustained acceleration precedes hiring, which precedes a fundraise.
The 5-minute exercise
- 1Open the GitHub org you picked yesterday.
- 2Click the most-active repo.
- 3On the repo home, click Insights → Pulse → 1 month.
- 4Note: commits in the last week, commits in the last month.
- 5Now click 3 months. Note: commits in the last quarter.
- 6Compute: (weekly × 4) ÷ (monthly) and (monthly × 3) ÷ (quarterly).
What you’re filtering for
Both ratios above ~1.3, the team is accelerating. Both above 1.5, the acceleration is sharp enough to be worth a closer look.
Edge case
For orgs with 50+ repos, do this on the top 3 repos by recent activity, not just one. You're trying to read the org-level signal, not a single-repo blip.
Bonus
A bot or a hackathon spikes for a week and reverts. A team that has hired or found product-market fit accelerates and stays accelerated. Sustained > spike.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow: contributor diversity, why a single-bus-factor codebase tanks the round.
Common questions about day 1
- How long does day 1 take?
- About five minutes of hands-on work against the org you picked on day one. The reading adds another two or three. If you are short on time the exercise alone still delivers the day's point.
- Do I need any tools or paid data for commit velocity?
- No. Every exercise in the challenge runs on public GitHub data and a browser. The feed that automates the same checks is available, but the curriculum itself is deliberately tool-free so the habit lands before the tooling.
- What if I miss a day?
- Every day is permanent at its own URL, so you can pick up exactly where you stopped. The sequence matters, each day builds on the previous one's artifact, but the pace is yours. Many people run the 30 days across six or seven weeks instead of four.
Curriculum: /challenge · Methodology: /methodology · Paper: ssrn.com/abstract=6606558