Office Hours: "What are investors actually evaluating — the numbers, or me?"

A student asked me a version of this in class. Here’s the answer I gave — the honest one.

The question, roughly as it came in: “What metrics do investors use to evaluate early-stage ventures? Do VCs invest in industries they barely know? Or are they really betting on the founders and the idea?”

Quick Answer — and I’ll take the high road first: different people do it different ways. But here’s how it actually works for most professional money, and here’s how I do it.