The Ride-or-Die Investment Filter
Screen deals on founder commitment and revenue proof, not hype
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 72%
This is a two-part screen: a hard revenue floor and a behavioral commitment test. Fleyshman only considers companies already doing at least $2M in sales, because pouring marketing dollars ('gasoline') into a business with zero traction ('no spark') produces nothing, while the same effort on a business with existing demand compounds fast. On top of the revenue floor, he filters for founders who are 'ride-or-die' — people who already treat the business as their only option, are visibly obsessed with promoting it, and would drop everything for an urgent opportunity. He explicitly passes on founders running the business as a hobby or side project, even if he personally likes them or the idea. The combination turns investing from picking winners blind into amplifying founders who have already proven both product-market fit and personal commitment, which is why his admitted hit rate (roughly 9 out of 10 working out) runs opposite to the typical 1-in-10 angel investing base rate.
Origin
Extracted from Coffeez for Closers
Core principles
- 01Traction beats potential: proof of sales is the real signal, not the pitch
- 02You can't coach commitment into a founder who doesn't already have it
- 03Capital only accelerates what's already working, it can't create demand from nothing
- 04A side-project mindset caps the ceiling no matter how good the idea is
- 05Picking fewer, better bets beats spreading capital across many unproven ones
How to run it
- 1
Apply the revenue floor
Only evaluate companies already doing at least $2 million in annual sales. This filters out ideas with no proven demand before any other diligence happens.
Pro tip Think of capital as gasoline: it only helps once there's already a spark of traction to ignite.
- 2
Test for ride-or-die commitment
Look for signals the founder is fully committed: no plan B, willing to travel or work at odd hours for the business, and already personally obsessed with the brand.
Watch out Charisma or celebrity status is not a substitute for this signal; skilled communicators can still be hobbyists.
- 3
Disqualify hobby and side-project signals
If the founder has a day job, a competing project, or other major distractions pulling focus from the business, pass on the deal regardless of the idea's quality.
- 4
Audit which channels already convert
Before investing, check what is already working — retail placements, podcast appearances, convention orders — because these are the levers capital will amplify.
Pro tip A quick audit of current sales channels tells you exactly where new spend should go first.
- 5
Size the investment to the growth lever
Match the check size to how aggressively you can help scale the specific channels already proven to work, not to a generic valuation target.
In the wild
Fleyshman described a hypothetical $7M revenue brand selling into 600 grocery stores. Instead of guessing, he pulls the sales and social data, hires three full-time sales reps to expand store count to 2,000, books booths at every relevant grocery convention, buys a month of front-and-back-page ads in a grocery trade magazine to use as a retail sales prop, and books the founder onto every food and beverage podcast.
→ The brand grows because existing working channels (retail, conventions, podcasts) get scaled aggressively rather than the company trying new, unproven tactics.
Common mistakes
Investing on founder hype alone
Even a well-known, likeable founder may not have the execution skills for shipping, hiring, and scaling if there's no existing revenue to prove it.
Ignoring hobby signals
Founders treating the business as a side project rarely put in the relentless effort required, no matter how promising the concept looks on paper.
Is it for you?
Best for
Angel investors and operators deciding whether to back a founder who already has some revenue traction.
Not ideal for
Investors specifically seeking pure pre-revenue startups or moonshot bets with no sales history.
From the transcript
“I only bet on Founders that I believe in are what I call ride or die... if it's a hobby I'm not investing, if it's…”
“I only invest in companies doing at least 2 million in sales, so that helps reduce my loss rate”
“if you don't have any sales yet and I pour gasoline the floor is wet, there's no fire because there's not even a spark yet”
From the episode
How to Go Public ft. Dan Fleyshman
Dan Fleyshman