The 60-Second Viability Score: What It Measures (and What It Doesn't)

Giri's most-used feature is the 60-second viability score: a 0–100 number that lands at the top of every validation report and that, for better or worse, founders anchor on. We've watched thousands of founders stare at the number and ask, in various forms, the same two questions: "Is this number real?" and "Can I make it higher?" This post is a candid answer to both.

The viability score is real, in the sense that it's a deterministic output of a specific computation applied to a specific set of inputs. It's also not a verdict. It's a summary statistic — useful for prioritisation, dangerous if treated as a final answer. By the end of this post you'll know exactly what goes into the number, what it can and can't tell you, and how to use it without being fooled by it.

What the score is, precisely

The viability score is a weighted aggregate of four sub-scores, each on a 0–100 scale, each computed from a different body of research:

• Market demand (35% weight). How much organic interest exists for the problem the idea solves. Inputs: search volume, trend data, news volume, public discussion.
• Competition (25% weight). How crowded the space is, and how differentiated the new idea is. Inputs: count of direct competitors, count of indirect competitors, recent funding rounds in the space, founder context for the wedge.
• Timing (25% weight). Whether the market is in an up-cycle, down-cycle, or stable. Inputs: macro trend data, regulatory tailwinds/headwinds, technology adoption curve position, recent major events.
• Team fit (15% weight). Whether the founder's stated context (industry experience, technical skills, prior relationships) gives them an unfair advantage. Inputs: founder profile, stated background, prior companies.

The four sub-scores are normalised, weighted, and combined into the final 0–100 number. The weights are not magic — they're a reflection of what the underlying research suggests is most predictive of startup outcomes. We tune them periodically as the data set grows.

What goes into each sub-score

A founder who knows what the score measures is in a much better position to know what to do with it. So let's walk through each sub-score in detail.

Market demand (35%)

The market-demand sub-score answers one question: "Is there real, measurable interest in the problem this idea solves?"

Inputs include:

• Google Trends data for the problem-domain keywords (e.g. "AI scheduling for HVAC" or "HVAC dispatch software"). We look at the 12-month trend, not the absolute level. A rising trend with a small absolute level beats a flat trend with a large absolute level.
• Search volume for problem-statement phrases. We use multiple search-data APIs to triangulate; no single source is treated as ground truth.
• News volume for the problem and adjacent topics. We pull from a curated list of 50+ industry publications, weighted by source authority.
• Public discussion on Reddit, LinkedIn, and niche forums. Volume and sentiment, with a steep discount for bot-generated content.

What it doesn't include:

• Willingness to pay. Search volume doesn't tell you if anyone will pay. The market-demand sub-score measures interest, not purchasing intent. The two are correlated but not identical.
• Specific buyer behaviour. A spike in "AI scheduling for HVAC" search volume in Texas could mean HVAC companies looking for tools, or it could mean curious consumers reading about AI. The sub-score doesn't disambiguate.

Competition (25%)

The competition sub-score answers: "How crowded is the space, and is the new idea differentiated?"

Inputs include:

• Count of direct competitors (same wedge, same buyer). More competitors = lower score, all else equal.
• Count of indirect competitors (different wedge, same job-to-be-done). A small number is healthy; a large number means the buyer has lots of options, which is good for buyers and bad for new entrants.
• Recent funding activity in the space. Lots of recent funding = lots of well-capitalised competitors = lower score.
• Founder context for differentiation. If the founder has direct industry experience or a relationship-based wedge, we bump the score to reflect the unfair advantage.

What it doesn't include:

• Quality of competitors. A space with 3 strong competitors is harder to enter than a space with 10 weak ones, even though the count says the opposite. The sub-score is a count, not a quality-adjusted count.
• Incumbent switching costs. A market dominated by entrenched software (Salesforce, SAP) is harder to enter than a market with no incumbent at all, regardless of the raw competitor count.

Timing (25%)

The timing sub-score answers: "Is now a good time to enter this market?"

Inputs include:

• Macro trend direction. Rising trend = higher score. Falling trend = lower score. We look at 12-month and 36-month windows.
• Regulatory tailwinds/headwinds. New regulation that favours the idea = higher score. New regulation that burdens the idea = lower score. We pull from a curated list of regulatory feeds and 6 industry-specific newsletters.
• Technology adoption curve. Some markets are early (10% of buyers have adopted the new tech), some are mainstreaming (40%), some are saturated (80%+). Earlier adoption = higher score, with a cap to avoid pure-hype markets.
• Recent major events. A pandemic, a regulation, a supply-chain shock, a major platform launch — all can shift timing by 5–10 points.

What it doesn't include:

• Your specific timing readiness. The sub-score measures the market's timing, not your personal readiness. A market can be perfectly timed and you can still be 6 months too early because you haven't finished the prototype.
• The next 12 months. Timing is a 3–5 year window, not a quarterly one. A market that's "early" today might be "mainstream" in 18 months.

Team fit (15%)

The team-fit sub-score answers: "Does this founder have an unfair advantage in this market?"

Inputs include:

• Stated industry experience. Years in the industry, prior roles, prior companies.
• Technical skills. Self-reported proficiency with the technology stack the idea requires.
• Stated relationships. Named potential buyers, advisors, or partners in the target market.
• Prior company outcomes. Whether the founder's prior companies succeeded, failed, or were acquired.

What it doesn't include:

• Demonstrated execution. The sub-score is based on the founder's stated context, not on what they've actually built. A founder who claims 20 years of HVAC experience but has never shipped a product scores the same as one who has shipped 3 HVAC products in 5 years.
• Domain expertise outside the wedge. The sub-score is scoped to the specific market the idea targets. A healthcare-experienced founder scoring an idea in construction will get a low team-fit score, even though they could clearly learn construction.

What the score can and can't tell you

The viability score is a summary statistic. Like any summary, it's useful for some questions and useless for others.

Use the score for these:

• Quick prioritisation between multiple ideas. If you have 5 ideas in your head and you need to know which one to validate first, the score is a reasonable starting filter. An idea with a 78 is probably worth deeper investigation than an idea with a 32.
• Sanity-check your own intuition. If you've been convinced an idea is amazing and the score comes back at 28, the gap between your conviction and the data is worth investigating. Either the data is wrong (possible) or your conviction is wrong (also possible).
• Track changes over time. If you re-run validation 3 months later and the score has moved from 42 to 58, that tells you something has changed in the market (a competitor exited, a regulation was passed, a major news event happened). The trend matters more than any single number.
• Communicate to non-technical audiences. A 0–100 score is the kind of number an investor, a co-founder, or a spouse can understand. The four sub-scores are the deeper story, but the headline number is a useful shorthand.

Don't use the score for these:

• As a verdict on whether to build. The score is a starting point, not a conclusion. Many successful companies were started with low scores; many failed companies were started with high scores. The score measures the market-side signals; it doesn't measure the founder's ability to execute, which is the actual predictor of success.
• As a substitute for buyer interviews. A score of 82 with 0 buyer interviews is worth less than a score of 56 with 12 buyer interviews. The interviews are the higher- quality signal.
• As a guarantee. A 92 score does not mean you'll succeed. A 28 score does not mean you'll fail. The score is a prior, not a posterior; you update it with new evidence as you gather it.
• As a static, one-time measurement. Markets change. Competitors enter and exit. Regulations shift. A score from 6 months ago may be wrong today. The score is timestamped for a reason: re-run it.

How to move the score

Founders often ask how to "improve" their score. The honest answer: most of the score's inputs are outside the founder's control. You can't move Google Trends. You can't move the regulatory environment. You can't make competitors exit. What you can move:

• Team fit, by changing the team. If your score is pulled down by team fit, the fix is to add a co-founder with the relevant industry experience, not to massage the inputs. Re-run the validation with the new team profile and the score updates.
• Differentiation, by sharpening the wedge. If your score is pulled down by competition, the fix is a sharper differentiation, not a complaint about the competitors. Re-run with a more specific buyer or a more specific wedge and the score often improves.
• Hypothesis quality, by writing a falsifiable one. The score doesn't directly measure hypothesis quality, but the report's other sections (the competitor analysis, the market sizing) get sharper when the hypothesis is sharper. A founder who can write a falsifiable claim in one sentence tends to produce a more credible report overall, which the underlying sub-scores tend to reflect.

What you can't move:

• The market demand sub-score. It's a function of what the market is doing, not what you want it to be doing.
• The timing sub-score. Same.
• The competition sub-score's count of direct competitors. You can change the wedge, but you can't make them go away.

Common misreadings of the score

A few interpretations we see all the time, and what to do instead:

"A high score means the idea is good." A high score means the market-side signals are favourable. It says nothing about whether you can build the company. The highest-scoring ideas still fail when the founder can't execute; the lowest-scoring ideas still succeed when the founder can.

"A low score means the idea is bad." A low score means one or more of the four sub-scores is unfavourable, which is information, not a verdict. The right response is to investigate the sub-score. Maybe the market-demand is low because the wedge is too narrow; you can re-run with a broader wedge and the score might double. Maybe the competition is high because the market is healthy; you might want a different market. The score is a starting point for investigation, not a finish line.

"The score is the same for every founder." It's not. The team-fit sub-score varies by founder, which means the total score can vary by 5–15 points between two founders validating the same idea. This is intentional. A healthcare-experienced founder and a generalist founder will face different odds on the same idea, and the score should reflect that.

"A small change in the score is meaningful." A 3-point change (78 → 81) is within the noise band. The score is deterministic given the same inputs, but the inputs themselves are subject to sampling, so a 3-point swing isn't a real signal. Look for changes of 8+ points before updating your priors.

The honest summary

The 60-second viability score is a useful tool for the questions it's designed to answer: which of my ideas should I look at first; how is the market trending; is my team a good fit for this wedge. It's not a verdict, not a guarantee, and not a substitute for the work that makes a startup succeed (buyer interviews, building, selling).

The founders who get the most out of the score are the ones who use it as a conversation starter with themselves, not as a conclusion. They look at the score, they look at the four sub-scores, and they ask "why is this number what it is?" Then they go do the work — the interviews, the prototype, the sales calls — that lets them update the score with real evidence.

That's what the score is for. The rest is up to you.