Week 2, Apply · Day 8 of 30
Day 8: Pick three real candidates
Three orgs from your own pipeline, one boring, one obvious, one wildcard.
Day 8 in one paragraph: Reading the framework is theory. The skill comes from running it. Picking three candidates with deliberately different profiles trains you to see what the composite catches that your gut misses, and where your gut still beats the score. 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 2 combines the atomic signals into a composite score and runs it against real candidate orgs. Day 8 of 30 sits 27% of the way through, in week 2, apply, 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 €49 in equivalent consulting time by the anchoring we use across the curriculum.
Yesterday
Week 1 closed yesterday with the composite. Week 2 starts now, and the only way to lock in the framework is to run it.
Why this signal matters
Reading the framework is theory. The skill comes from running it. Picking three candidates with deliberately different profiles trains you to see what the composite catches that your gut misses, and where your gut still beats the score.
The 5-minute exercise
- 1Open your existing pipeline (CRM, notes app, Notion, whatever).
- 2Pick #1, the boring one. A startup you'd assume scores 3/6, no obvious tells.
- 3Pick #2, the obvious one. The startup you already feel good about.
- 4Pick #3, the wildcard. A pre-revenue or stealth-ish org you can't quite read.
- 5Note today: GitHub URL for each, a one-line gut prediction (score 0-6), the reason.
What you’re filtering for
Three orgs that are public on GitHub. If a candidate has no public repos, pick again, the framework is GitHub-native and we want a clean comparison.
Edge case
If your pipeline is empty, pick three Series A/B announces from the last 30 days of TechCrunch. The framework works retroactively too, you'll see what the headline missed.
Bonus
Write down the gut prediction BEFORE you score. The most useful artifact of the week is the delta between your gut and the composite, both are data.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow: candidate #1, end-to-end, in 15 minutes. We'll do all six signals on the boring one first.
Common questions about day 8
- How long does day 8 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 pick three real candidates?
- 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