Example grade
Northline · island freight · pre-seed
Illustrative example. Your result is scored from your own submission.
Problem4 / 5
Island freight is late and priced like a favor. The pain is named, and it has a customer.
Solution3 / 5
A scheduled skiff and a shared warehouse. Credible. The "why now" is one sentence.
Market Size2 / 5
The TAM is a national logistics figure. No count of islands that would actually pay.
Business Model3 / 5
Per-crate pricing is clear. The unit economics are one slide and one assumption.
Traction2 / 5
Twelve paying crates and a letter from one harbor master. A start. Not a business.
Team4 / 5
The founder ran a ferry. Right operator. Nobody on the page owns the numbers.
Competition & Moat3 / 5
The ferry and the barge are named. "We know this harbor" is a head start, not a wall.
Go-to-Market2 / 5
Win one harbor, then "expand." No cost attached to the second one.
The Ask & Use of Funds3 / 5
Raising $400k, and the uses are listed. The milestone that money buys is still fog.
Story & Clarity4 / 5
Twelve slides, and two of them repeat the market. It should be ten.
You can retell it. The market slide has no islands on it, and twelve crates is not traction.