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03 · Screen · 14 min

The screen — a person, ten dimensions, a written yes or no

Application first. Calendar never automatic. Thirty minutes. Proposal within 24 hours. Fixed fee. We do not renegotiate into a percentage of raise.

Who
A founder who can decide budget and messaging on the call.
Time
Application in an hour; call in thirty minutes; proposal in a day
Owner
RCA Pad scores. You arrive able to answer.

Ten dimensions. The sale ask should be near zero.

  • Entity90
  • Product78
  • Counsel40
  • Path22
  • Budget84
  • Geography70
  • Claims55
  • Team88
  • Date60
  • Sale ask8

Guide

Why the calendar is not the product

A booking link is how a house inherits someone else’s leak.

If you can book us without a screen, we will spend the call discovering that you want a public sale, or that counsel does not exist, or that the date is next week. That is not qualification. That is a courtesy we cannot afford, because courtesy is how 2017-shaped jobs get into the building.

The application is ten dimensions, not a CAPTCHA. A person reads it. If the job is a public sale we would run, the process ends in writing. If the job is real, you get a thirty-minute call on a script, then a proposal with scope, exclusions, fee, and what “done” looks like. Deposit, then onboarding. No stage skips this.

Guide

The ten dimensions, in the open

You should know what we score before you apply. Mystery scoring is a pad behaviour.

Entity solidity. Product evidence. Counsel status. Pathway honesty. Geography adultness. Claims discipline. Budget in sterling. Team identifiability. Date realism. Sale-ask (should be near zero). The last one is a tripwire. If you need us to take funds or allocate, the score does not matter — we decline.

A high score is not a listing. It is permission to talk. A mid score with a real product is often a Sprint with a locked not-offering. A low score with a beautiful brand is a no. The 570 who did not make the board mostly failed pathway honesty, geography, or the sale-ask.

Calendar is never automatic. A person reads. That is the whole quality system.

Screening note

Guide

The call is a script

Six questions. If one cannot be answered, the proposal is not issued.

What is the product evidence — URL, testnet, pilot — not the deck? What is the date, and what happens on that date? What is the budget for RCA Pad, in sterling, not tokens? Who is counsel, and have they seen the public messaging? What is the token status, and who is the audience by jurisdiction? Who decides — and if they want us to run a public sale, we stop.

You do not need perfect answers. You need real ones. “Counsel not retained, we know” is a real answer. “The date is a conference we already paid for” is a real answer, and usually a bad date. We would rather hear the bad fact than the polished hole.

Arrive with:

  • Authority to discuss fee and messaging.
  • The five-part intent sentence, even if draft.
  • A URL.
  • A first named geography.
  • Honesty about whether anyone has already posted offering language.

Guide

What the proposal contains — and what it does not

Scope and exclusions in the same document. “Done” in writing.

Objective and named owner. Scope. Exclusions (sale, custody, allocation, Reg CA underwriting). Inputs you must produce. Timeline. Acceptance criteria. Compliance triggers. Named geographies. Fee, deposit, what happens if you walk. That is the proposal. It is not a pitch deck about us. It is not a promise that the window opens.

We do not reopen fee as a percentage of raise after you like us. We do not “throw in a Telegram raid.” We do not start work on a handshake. Deposit lands, then the desk opens.

Done when

Checklist.

  • Application submitted with real fields, not “TBC.”
  • Someone with budget authority will be on the call.
  • Sale-ask is no.
  • You can name a geography you are willing to lock.

Kills the stage

Failure modes.

  • Booking link culture

    If you need a calendar before a screen, this is the wrong house.

  • Token as fee

    Sterling. The invoice is boring on purpose.

  • “Just a quick call”

    The script exists because quick calls become inherited leaks.

Next step

Ready to run it?

The screen is real. The guides are the map. Apply when the first sentence exists.