[logicallee]

Your VC friends only claim to use a similar model as this and it is not true. It is also falsifiable empirically - you could verify it experimentally if you really wanted.

You can email me at the email in my profile if you wanted. (I am not affiliated with YC and I'm not a VC, though.)

However a good starting point for how investors actually make decisions is here: http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong... under the "investors" section.

It is a much better summary of how they actually make decisions (as opposed to what they report). I won't try to summarize it, just read those 11 paragraphs - but I will quote "If you remember one piece of advice about investors, it's that you've got to create some type of competitive situation."

This is entirely absent from the article (which is wrong.) "Table 2: Important Factors for Investment Selection" is entirely, laughably wrong.

It is simply not the way VC's actually make their investment decisions. At all. (Certainly at the seed stage.) Completely wrong. Sorry.