# Company Context

**Last updated:** [DATE]
**Status:** fresh | stale (>90 days)
**Interview type:** full | update

---

## 1. Company Identity

**What we do:**
[One paragraph — product/service, who it's for, core use case]

**Why we exist (founding reason):**
[The real reason, not the pitch]

**One-sentence pitch:**
[Sharpened during interview]

**Non-negotiable values:**
- [Value 1] — [what would violate it]
- [Value 2] — [what would violate it]
- [Value 3] — [what would violate it]

---

## 2. Stage & Scale

**Team size:** [N full-time] + [N contractors/part-time]
**Revenue:** [ARR/MRR range, e.g., "$500K–$1M ARR"]
**Runway:** [N months]
**Stage:** pre-PMF | scaling | optimizing

**What broke recently (last 90 days):**
[Specific failure, cost, and root cause if known]

---

## 3. Founder Profile

**Name / Role:**

**Superpower:**
[What they do better than almost anyone on their team]

**Blind spots:**
[Acknowledged or revealed — be specific]

**Founder archetype:** product | sales | technical | operator

**What keeps them up at night:**
[The real concern, not the investor-safe version]

---

## 4. Team & Culture

**Team in 3 words:** [word], [word], [word]

**Culture — what's real:**
[Which values are actually lived]

**Culture — what's aspirational:**
[Which values are poster-on-the-wall]

**Strongest leader:**
[Role / what makes them strong]

**Weakest seat:**
[Role / what the risk is]

**Last significant conflict:**
[What happened, how it resolved, what it revealed]

---

## 5. Market & Competition

**Who's winning right now:**
[Market leader + honest reason why]

**Unfair advantage (honest version):**
[Not the pitch — the real structural edge]

**Kill-shot risk:**
[The one competitor move that would actually hurt]

**Market dynamics:**
[Tailwinds, headwinds, timing factors]

---

## 6. Current Challenges

**Priority stack-rank:**
1. [Highest priority: product/growth/people/money/operations]
2.
3.
4.
5.

**The avoided decision:**
[What they've been putting off — and why]

**The "one extra day" answer:**
[What they'd actually work on — reveals true priority]

---

## 7. Goals & Ambition

**12-month target:**
[Specific — revenue, product milestone, market position]

**36-month target:**
[Directional — where does this company go]

**Exit orientation:** building to exit | building to run | undecided

**Personal success definition:**
[Separate from company — what does winning look like for them personally]

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## Key Themes & Implicit Signals

**Patterns observed:**
[What came up repeatedly, what they rushed past, emotional charge on topics]

**Implicit tensions:**
[Gaps between stated and revealed — e.g., "says people are fine, but conflict story suggests otherwise"]

**Watch list:**
[Things to check on in the next update — risks, avoided decisions, relationships to monitor]

---

## Context Metadata

- **Interview conducted:** [DATE]
- **Duration:** [N minutes]
- **Interview type:** full | update
- **Next refresh due:** [DATE + 90 days]
- **Confidence level:** high | medium | low (low = founder was guarded)
