# Due Diligence Interview Questions for Early-Stage Founders

> Due diligence interview questions for early-stage founders: 15 questions with follow-ups, the evidence to request, a scoring sheet and a filled example.

- URL: https://tracyinterview.ai/blog/due-diligence-interview-questions
- Published: 2026-11-11
- Author: Tracy team

> **In short** Tracy AI Interviewer runs this 15-question template (five areas, a follow-up, evidence to request and a 1 to 5 score) as the first interview for every founder, with a recording, transcript and assessment per question.
>
> A Director at a top-tier early-stage VC says Tracy "asks meaningful, investment-relevant questions."
>
> An interview collects claims, and documents still verify them. Next: set the template up as a Tracy interview.

We make Tracy AI Interviewer.

Due diligence interview questions for an early-stage founder have a different job from a pitch Q&A. Ask what the founder knows, how they know it and what they could show you. A seed-stage company has little to audit, so the interview carries more weight than it does later, and a vague one leaves the decision to instinct.

Below is a working template: 15 questions in five areas, with a follow-up, the evidence to request and columns for a score and notes. Use it as it stands or edit it. If you run it on more founders than your partners can meet, Tracy AI Interviewer can ask the same questions as a first call and leave a record for each. Our [applications page](/use-cases/applications) shows that flow, and the guide to the [accelerator interview](/blog/accelerator-interview) covers the programme side.

## What are the due diligence interview questions to ask a founder?

[Make a copy of the template in Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynPkMGs8ZbQupqpfGUUnR33ETp7FmCYgCy_-7mJauHA/copy), or copy this table into your own sheet. Ask the question, wait for the answer, then ask the follow-up. The last three columns are yours: ask for the evidence after the call, score from 1 to 5, and write what the founder said in their words.

| Area | Ask | Follow up with | Evidence to request | Score (1 to 5) | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Customer and problem | 1. Who is the customer, and what does the problem cost them today? | Who paid you last, and what were they using before? | Customer list with start dates | | |
| Customer and problem | 2. Tell me about a customer you lost. | How many lost customers gave the same reason? | Churn list with reasons | | |
| Customer and problem | 3. What do customers do today when your product is missing? | Which workaround do they like most? | Two customer call notes | | |
| Traction | 4. Which number best shows people want this? | How is it counted, and over what period? | The export behind it | | |
| Traction | 5. What moved that number last quarter? | What would it have been if you had changed nothing? | Month-by-month figures | | |
| Traction | 6. What would you show me if I asked to see the data? | Who else can confirm it? | A reference customer | | |
| Market | 7. How big is the market, built from the bottom up? | Which single assumption would change the answer most? | The sheet with the assumptions | | |
| Market | 8. Who is the next customer after the first group? | What stops them buying today? | A list of target accounts | | |
| Market | 9. Who else solves this, including doing nothing? | What would a well-funded competitor do first? | Competitor notes | | |
| Team and execution | 10. What have you shipped in the last 90 days? | What slipped, and why? | Release log or roadmap | | |
| Team and execution | 11. Who decides what, and who is missing? | What have you not hired for yet, and why? | Org chart and equity split | | |
| Team and execution | 12. Tell me about a disagreement between the founders. | How was it settled, and would you settle it that way again? | None | | |
| Why now and risks | 13. What changed that makes this possible now? | What happens if that change reverses? | A source for the change | | |
| Why now and risks | 14. What is the biggest risk to the plan? | What have you done to test it? | The test and its result | | |
| Why now and risks | 15. What would you do with the next 12 months of funding? | What would tell you at six months that it was going wrong? | Budget by quarter | | |

## How do you score the answers?

A score is only useful if two partners reading the same answer reach the same one. Use anchors.

| Score | What the answer sounds like |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | No specifics. Adjectives where a number should be. |
| 2 | Some detail, but it cannot say where it came from. |
| 3 | Specific on the point asked, with no way yet to confirm it. |
| 4 | Specific, consistent with other answers, and the founder offers the source. |
| 5 | All of 4, and the founder volunteers a weakness before you ask. |

Weight the areas to the round. For a pre-seed programme you might weight team and customer more heavily. For a later round, traction and market. Tracy lets you set the skills and their weights per role or for a family of roles, so the same sheet becomes the scoring criteria for every founder.

A founder interview is also the place to compare founders with each other, so use the same opening questions for everyone. See our guide to [how to screen candidates](/blog/how-to-screen-candidates) for the general method.

## What does a filled-in scoring sheet look like?

This is a filled example with sample data. The company and the founder are fictional.

| Ask | What the founder said (sample) | Follow-up and answer | Score | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2. Tell me about a customer you lost. | A bakery left in March. Setup took a week and the owner gave up. | Four of seven lost customers left over setup, three over price. | 4 | Offered the churn list. Has cut setup to a day. |
| 5. What moved that number last quarter? | Trial sign-ups doubled after the setup change. | Would have grown about 10 percent without it, from the old trend. | 3 | Estimate only. Ask for monthly figures. |
| 7. How big is the market? | Roughly 40,000 small bakeries in the markets served. | Assumes 30 percent would pay at $80 a month. The 30 percent is a guess. | 3 | Named the weak assumption without being asked. |

The scores sit beside the founder's words, so a second partner can read the same line and disagree with it.

![Scorecard with five diligence areas scored out of 5, overall 3.7, marked as sample data.](/blog/images/due-diligence-interview-questions-2.png)

*Tracy's report can score the five diligence areas from the call, so partners compare founders on one scale. Sample data, fictional founder. Sample data, fictional founder.*

Five diligence areas, each scored from the call, give partners one comparable number per founder.

## What can an interview not tell you?

An interview collects claims. It does not confirm them. Revenue, contracts, the cap table, intellectual property and legal standing need documents, and the third column of the table is there so you ask for them. Tracy records what the founder says; checking documents, customers and credentials is a step your team does. Treat the interview as the step that decides which founders earn the document review.

It also does not replace a conversation with a person. The second round, and the references, stay with your partners.

## How do you run these questions as a Tracy interview?

Copy the table, then run it as a Tracy interview in four steps.

1. **Load the questions.** Paste the 15 questions into a new interview, or describe what you want to learn and let Tracy draft them. Edit freely, and choose a style from quick to deep.
2. **Set the criteria.** Enter the five areas as the skills to score, with the weights you chose.
3. **Share one link.** Put it in the application form or an email. A founder opens it in a browser with no account, at any hour, and is told that the conversation is recorded and transcribed.
4. **Read the results.** Tracy asks each question, follows up on the founder's answer and waits for them to finish. Each founder gets a recording of both sides, a timestamped transcript, a written assessment per question with its reasoning, and a ranking against the others. A partner decides.

The diagram below shows the path. A result can be shared by link or PDF with an investment committee. The [product page](/product) lists the settings, and [AI interview reports](/blog/ai-interview-reports) shows how a report reads. Request the documents in the third column yourself after the call.

![Four steps: load 15 questions, share one link, Tracy interviews, a partner decides.](/blog/images/due-diligence-interview-questions-1.png)

*Tracy turns the template into one link, an interview for every founder and a report a partner decides from. Illustration of the workflow. Sample data, fictional founder.*

The template becomes a first call for every founder, and a partner decides from the report.

## When is a call with a partner enough?

If you diligence ten founders a quarter, a partner on a video call is likely cheaper and better than any tool. The case for an automated first call starts when applications outnumber partner hours. Our guide to [AI interview versus human interview](/blog/ai-interview-vs-human-interview) compares the two.

Tracy costs $1 per credit, one credit per started 20 minutes of an interview that produced a result. The first 3 results are free with no card, there are no seats and a session with no answers is never charged. 100 interviews of 20 minutes cost $100. Try one on the [Connect page](/connect), and see [pricing](/pricing) for the current plan.

[Make a copy of the template in Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ynPkMGs8ZbQupqpfGUUnR33ETp7FmCYgCy_-7mJauHA/copy) and fill it in on your next call.

Which path fits you:

- Programme, fellowship or scholarship applications: [applications](/use-cases/applications).
- Experts to vet for a project: [expert vetting](/use-cases/expert-vetting).
- Customer discovery or win-loss calls: [customer research](/use-cases/customer-research).

## Common questions

### What are due diligence interview questions?

Questions that test what a founder knows and can prove about the customer, the traction, the market, the team and the risks. Each should have a follow-up that asks for a count, an example or a document.

### What are some due diligence interview questions and answers for a founder?

Ask who paid last and what they used before. A strong answer names the customer and the thing it replaced. A weak one describes a market. The table above gives 15 questions with follow-ups and what to listen for.

### How do you do due diligence on an early-stage startup?

Interview the founders, ask for the documents behind each claim, speak to two or three customers, and score what you learn the same way for every company.

### Can due diligence interviews be automated?

The first interview can. Tracy asks your questions, follows up and leaves a recording, a transcript and an assessment per question. Document review and references stay with your team.

### How long should a founder due diligence interview be?

Thirty to forty-five minutes covers 15 questions with follow-ups. That is our rule of thumb.

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Send us your questions and we will set up the interview, weights and report for you in days. [Try it free](https://tracyinterview.ai/connect?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=seo&utm_campaign=due-diligence-interview-questions&utm_content=try-free) · [Book a demo](https://cal.com/tracy-ai/tracy-demo-web?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=seo&utm_campaign=due-diligence-interview-questions&utm_content=demo)

## Sources

- [Tracy AI Interviewer pricing](https://tracyinterview.ai/pricing), retrieved 9 Nov 2026.
- [Tracy AI Interviewer Connect page](https://tracyinterview.ai/connect), retrieved 9 Nov 2026.
- [Tracy AI Interviewer product page](https://tracyinterview.ai/product), retrieved 9 Nov 2026.
- [Tracy AI Interviewer home page, customer testimonials](https://tracyinterview.ai/), retrieved 9 Nov 2026.