VEN-12 · Kill criteria

Write the conditions under which you would shut this venture down — before you know whether you will hit them. Then apply them honestly to what you actually have. Would your own plan survive its own test?

The completed venture packet. The criteria are written and dated early, countersigned by the teacher, and not revised afterward. Each names a metric, a threshold, and a date: not "if we don't get traction," but "if fewer than N of the wedge customers we reach agree to a paid pilot by week ten." If the venture clears its own criteria, the deliverable becomes the continue-decision with its conditions and next checkpoint, graded identically.

Writing criteria after seeing results, which is the failure this brief exists to prevent. Thresholds so loose nothing could fail them, or so tight nothing could pass — both dodge the decision. Vague criteria with no metric, threshold, or date. Applying the criteria and then explaining why this case is special. Treating a kill as failure: a venture correctly killed on evidence is a better outcome than one continued on hope, and this bank grades it that way.

A decision memo: the dated, countersigned criteria, reproduced unchanged; the honest evaluation against each, marked pass or fail; the decision — continue, pivot, or stop — following from the criteria as written; what the decision costs, including the sunk work and what the student learned that survives the venture; and a short note on what would have to change for the answer to be different.

CT: holding a pre-specified criterion against a result you wanted. CR: setting thresholds that could genuinely go either way. CO: a peer or mentor argues the opposite decision from the same evidence. CM: a memo an advisor could act on. CZ: who is harmed by continuing something that should stop — the customers, the team, or the student's own next year.

A founder, investor, or business advisor countersigns the criteria early and reviews the application at the end. Standing instruction: reject criteria submitted after results exist. School-supervised.

R1: criteria written and dated before results. R2: each criterion has metric, threshold, and date. R3: comparator is continuing with no criteria at all. R4: the cost of each decision direction stated. R5: memo is decision-ready. R6: this brief is R6 — the refusal is the artifact.

(a) Criteria quietly rewritten late so the venture passes its own test. (b) A confident "continue" with no account of what continuing costs.

Lane A immediately, and the natural finale for this track alongside VEN-09. No verified credit claim.