Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
David Frankel no published score: only 3 usable exchanges on raw tape, and a fair score needs 8+ · coarse estimate ≈4.0/5 from 3 raw tape exchanges record → ← everyone
Every exchange below was scored with names hidden, four dimensions each from 1 to 5.
An exchange's score is 0.30·directness + 0.30·coherence + 0.25·precision + 0.15·compression.
The published score averages the raw tape exchange scores and shrinks small samples toward the
cohort mean, so five great answers can't beat twenty good ones. Produced feed rows count only
toward coarse estimates, never toward a full score.
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q on this post. Whenever you get into MA, this 10 point checklist and we'll keep updating it. I would like it to be a canonical piece of content to help founders this first one. So let's go through them. But this one is takes a while to understand buyer motivations, know what they're buying. Do a little bit more of a deep dive here in practice. What have you seen?
A Yeah. So I think. You really do have to understand, and it comes from listening and speaking and engaging with buyers. And hopefully what you've had the opportunity to do is have those conversations before the moment where you say my company's for sale. So you actually know what you're going to plug there. And I do think that if you have this luxury, you've got to tailor your pitch for those different buyers. An example, Could be Amazon PillPack, where really I think what Amazon was ultimately interested in was the software system. We thought that the packaging, the robotic packaging, and the delivery mechanism was like incredibly novel, and it was, but the reality was Amazon could replicate that and make it better in a heartbeat. That wasn't what they needed, but the spaghetti between the The providers and the insurers and the PBMs. So the pharmacy benefit managers actually making that system coherent and making it work with multiple stakeholders. That was a huge software effort. And it's, it is Amazon pharmacy today. It's literally based on that pill pack code. And we always look at that as this was just an enabler, right? Like the real business was like the, what the consumer saw in the consumer packaging and messaging. And we had to get that right, but that was what Amazon was interested in. So tailoring and understanding that makes a huge difference. In some cases, you nee…
AI assessment note: “An example, Could be Amazon PillPack, where really I think what Amazon was ultimately interested”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q Yeah. This one's the next one. Share the story. Fully commit to the process. Selling's highly distracting. Don't proceed unless you're all in. I do think you have to take baby steps to learn, right? There is a line, right? Where it's not that. One meeting is not a huge distraction, is it? But share your learnings here. Yeah.
A So just in fairness, this is size and this is size dependent, right? Some of what I will say is, When you've got a CEO that has a really good C-suite that's built out, and that CEO is, is not frontline selling, and they've got a fantastic COO and CFO, then it's easier to commit to a process, right? It's easier to spend time on the process. If you're in year three and you're still, it's still like founder-led sales, and you don't have your team built out as much, then the, then the cost of the distraction can be that much higher. But it's even like fundraising, is I see people taking one meeting, and then one fund says they're interested, but you never had any other funds involved, and that just takes on a life of its own. Yeah. Any process, think hard about whether you want to go, and if you do want to go, understand that it's going to take time. Some of the best fundraisers I've seen say, I'm going to effectively take three weeks off my business, and I'm going to raise this round. M&A, you've put so much time and effort into building your company, into putting this team together, energizing the team, you name it, every aspect of building, and yet you're going to half-ass your sales process, like arguably one of the most important things in your life, and I see it done. So I think the fact is, it's not just the founders that have to be fully committed and aligned and in agreeme…
AI assessment note: “this is size dependent, right? Some of what I will say is, When you've got a CEO”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q Yeah, for sure. Okay. Manage team expectations. We probably hit this one before. It's as simple as manage their, don't let them start planning their new Tesla or beach homes or anything actually beyond that?
A It's a bit of many a slip between the cup and the lip, like this is a three percent, like just because we're going into play doesn't mean we'll get it done, doesn't mean we'll get it done now. And the default is you have a job at a company that is hopefully doing well. Again, if you've got a company that is not doing well, that is not growing, that is not meeting your expectations, your funder's expectations, your market expectations, then you've got a different situation on your hands. And in the context of this conversation, I guess it's not fair not to mention that side of the spectrum, but over there, probably the expectation to manage is this is going to be very hard to sell. This is going to be very hard to sell other than as an acqui-hire because we've taken a lot of money. We, unfortunately, we've made some mistakes and we don't deserve much more than that. So either way, being Open and honest and aligned with your top stakeholders can save you a tremendous amount of time.
AI assessment note: “just because we're going into play doesn't mean we'll get it done”
