Assessing Technical Founders From Their GitHub: Shipping Discipline as a Quality Signal

A technical founder's GitHub is the most honest resume they have, a running record of what they build, at what pace, and with whom. This post explains how to read shipping discipline and contributor patterns as capability signals, and how the Scout Score grades a founder's eye for unicorns from their star history.

Key stats

0-100: Scout Score range (grades a GitHub user's star history against ~75 validated unicorns)

75: Validated unicorns in the Scout Score reference set (the benchmark for a founder's eye for breakout companies)

14-day: Window for reading shipping pace (consistency beats volume at the founder level)

References

[1] Engineering Acceleration as a VC Deal Flow Signal: SSRN

[2] VC Deal Flow Signal MCP Server: npm

[3] VC Deal Flow Signal Methodology: GitDealFlow