What evidence makes a startup worth building?
Evidence is not a pile of documents. It is material that changes confidence in a specific claim about the problem, demand, founder, delivery path, or commercial relationship.
Behavior is stronger than approval
Repeated workarounds, spending, signed pilots, data access, introductions, scheduled implementation work, and continued use show more than compliments or survey enthusiasm. Record what people did, not only what they said.
Founder evidence needs concrete outcomes
Relevant shipped work, domain access, operating history, measurable results, customer relationships, and sustained commitment can support execution claims. A biography without inspectable outcomes remains self-authored context.
Provenance and entailment both matter
Identify where the evidence came from and whether it actually supports the claim being made. An authentic document can still be irrelevant or misinterpreted; a third-party source does not automatically prove every conclusion drawn from it.
Unknowns should produce tests
When evidence is missing, state the assumption and define a proportionate way to test it. The absence of evidence is not automatically failure, but hiding the gap prevents a responsible build decision.