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This is a sample report — generated from a fictional Seed-stage startup to illustrate what EPIC Compass produces. Complete the assessment to receive your own personalised report in 20 minutes.
67/100
EPIC Assessment Result · Seed Stage
Practitioner
Structured and improving. You have a functional leadership base and real strengths to leverage. Two targeted gaps are holding you back from the next level — address them before your next raise.
At Seed stage, a score of 67 places you in the top 35% of comparable organisations. Investors at this stage look for execution signals and coachability — both are present here.
Priority Development Areas
Your five critical gaps
Ranked by weighted impact on your stage progression. Each gap includes three concrete steps and a cost-of-inaction estimate.
1.Commit to 3 posts this week. One insight from something you learned. One lesson from something that went wrong. One company update. Keep each post to 200–400 words and use the "hook / insight / takeaway" structure.
2.Build your investor update template today: KPIs vs. last month / market context / top 3 wins / top obstacle + what you are doing / the ask. Send on the same day each month — consistency is the signal.
3.Engage with 5 other founders' posts this week. Commenting builds your reach faster than posting alone. Make it a weekly habit for 8 weeks before evaluating results.
Cost of inaction
Founders who send consistent monthly updates raise their next round 23% faster on average, according to Sequoia partner data. Founders who post consistently on LinkedIn generate 40% more inbound investor and partnership approaches than those who do not. At Seed stage, written presence is a distribution channel.
1.At the end of every meeting starting today: who does what by when? Write it down and share it in the meeting channel within 5 minutes.
2.Use a shared tool (Asana, Linear, or even a doc) to track open action items. Review the list at the start of the next meeting — every time, without exception.
3.After 30 days, calculate your team's OKR completion rate. Share it openly. Make improvement a shared goal, not a management enforcement.
Cost of inaction
Attain OKR completion rates above 70% and your Series A timeline shortens by an average of 3 months, based on Sequoia portfolio benchmarks. Teams with systematic action tracking complete 42% more planned work per quarter than those relying on memory and goodwill.
1.List your 10 most recurring operational tasks this week. For each, ask: could someone else make this decision 80% as well as me? For each delegatable task, name an owner and set a 2-week transition timeline.
2.Run a monthly audit: track which decisions came to you that should not have. Use it to train the team, not blame them.
3.Announce to your team this week that you are actively building their autonomy. Name the first three decision areas you are transferring. Make the commitment public.
Cost of inaction
Founders who cannot delegate are statistically the most common reason Series A companies miss their 18-month milestones. Your leverage is capped until this changes. Investors assess this directly — they ask how decisions are made, not just what decisions were made.
1.Before every strategic external meeting, define your desired outcome in one sentence: "I want to leave this meeting with X." Write it down.
2.Open every meeting by stating your intent: "I'd love to leave today with a clear next step — even if that's a decision to not move forward."
3.At the close of every meeting, name the next step explicitly: who does what by when. If there is no next step, the meeting did not convert.
Cost of inaction
Founders who pre-define meeting outcomes convert at 2.1x the rate of those who approach meetings open-endedly (First Round Capital partner interviews, 2022). At Seed stage, every warm investor introduction has a half-life of approximately 3 weeks.
1.Schedule a 2-hour values workshop with your leadership team this month. The goal: codify 4–6 core values as behaviours, not adjectives.
2.Make the charter a physical artefact — not just a slide in a deck. It should live in your onboarding documentation, your office wall, and your Notion.
3.In the next 90 days, run at least one decision or conflict review through the values lens. Explicitly ask: what do our values say about this?
Cost of inaction
Companies with codified, trained values have 2.8x lower leadership-related ethical incidents and 35% higher new-hire cultural fit ratings (Deloitte Human Capital Trends). Investors ask about culture operationalisation in 62% of Series A people due diligence processes.
Demonstrated Strengths
Where you are leading
KPIs where you scored at the maximum level. Each is a competitive advantage — here is how to leverage it.
Innovate
Market Signal Integration
You incorporate external signals faster than most at your stage. The founders who win at Series A are those who saw market shifts 6 months early. Use this as a narrative advantage in investor conversations.
Empower
Resilience Under Pressure
Your psychological resilience is above the 90th percentile at Seed stage. Under the conditions of a startup, this is worth more than any MBA. Make it explicit in your leadership story.
Innovate
Customer NPS & Trust Building
Your customer relationships generate trust at a rate that correlates strongly with Series A success. Investors ask about NPS in 78% of due diligence processes. Lead with this number.
Cohort Benchmark
You vs. your stage cohort
Comparison against EPIC Alliance indicative averages at Seed stage. Indicative only — based on modelled cohort data.
Cohort averages are indicative, based on modelled data for Seed-stage organisations assessed with EPIC Compass. They will be replaced by live benchmark data as the assessment cohort grows.
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