Venture Capital interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

31

Firms

12

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsGeneral Atlantic9Insight Partners7Silver Lake6Vista Equity Partners4Bessemer Venture Partners3ACAccel2Advent International2Battery Ventures2Andreessen Horowitz1Coatue Management1Sequoia Capital1WPWarburg Pincus1

Topic

All topicsSourcing and deal flow5Market sizing and estimation8Founders and teams5Unit economics and cohorts11Term sheets12Cap table and dilution7Early-stage valuation7Portfolio construction6Board and governance4Down rounds and secondaries4Exits and liquidity4Fund economics5Sector theses and markets6India venture market6Fit and motivation10

Level

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalFitCaseMarket viewBrainteaser

1. 016A brilliant solo founder, no technical co-founder, strong early traction. Invest or pass?Founders and teamsIntermediatetechnicalEarly-stage VCSeed funds

   Say this

   It depends on whether the missing capability is on the critical path and whether they can hire it. Solo founders are not disqualifying — the data is roughly neutral — but a non-technical solo founder in a deep-technology business is a real problem, and the same person in a distribution-led business often is not.

   Then walk it

   1. First: is the hard part of this company technical or commercial? A compliance-workflow product where the moat is regulatory relationships and sales can survive an outsourced build. A new database cannot.
   2. Second: what has the traction actually proven? If they got to $500k of revenue with contractors and no CTO, they have proven demand and they have taken on technical debt. Both are true and both get priced.
   3. Third, and decisive: can they recruit? Ask who they have already tried to hire as CTO, what happened, and who is in the pipeline. A founder with two credible engineering leaders in late-stage conversation is a different risk from one who has not started.
   4. The structural risk is single point of failure. No one to argue with, no one to cover when they burn out, and a key-person dependency that shows up in every later diligence. That does get priced, usually in ownership or in a vesting and governance structure.
   5. How I would actually do it: invest with the round sized and milestoned to a senior technical hire, help run that search as the main value-add, and reserve for a bridge if it takes longer. Possibly a slightly larger option pool to fund the hire.
   6. And the honest data point: solo-founder companies are well represented among large outcomes, so a blanket rule against them is a filter that costs you more than it saves. The real question is capability gap, not headcount.

   Where candidates lose it

   Giving a policy answer either way. 'We never back solo founders' is a lazy heuristic the interviewer will push back on, and 'traction solves everything' ignores the execution risk. The answer is conditional on where the hard part of the business sits, and it ends with a structure, not a verdict.

   Expect next

   • How would you structure the round to manage that risk?
   • What if they refuse to give up the CTO title?
   • Name a solo-founder company that worked and say why.
2. 018Two co-founders, a fifty-fifty split, no vesting. What do you say to them?Founders and teamsIntermediatetechnicalEarly-stage VCSeed funds

   Say this

   The split I can live with; the absence of vesting I cannot. Any round I lead will put both founders on four-year vesting with a one-year cliff, with credit for time already served, and that is a condition rather than a negotiation.

   Then walk it

   1. Why vesting is non-negotiable: if a founder leaves in month eight with 50 percent of the company unvested-but-owned, the remaining founder is running a business where half the equity belongs to someone who has gone. No later investor will fund that, and no new hire can be paid properly out of what is left.
   2. Mechanics: four years, one-year cliff, monthly thereafter, with acceleration only on a change of control and usually double-trigger. Credit for time already worked is the fair concession — if they have been at it 18 months, they start 18 months vested.
   3. On the fifty-fifty split itself: it is fine and often healthy, but it is worth asking how they break a tie. Companies with no decision-maker stall at exactly the moment speed matters. I would want to hear a real answer, even an informal one.
   4. The deeper thing the question is really testing: how the founders react to being told. A pair who immediately understand why an investor needs it are much easier to work with than a pair who treat it as distrust. This is genuinely diagnostic.
   5. And frame it for them in their own interest, because that is the truthful framing: vesting protects the founder who stays, not the investor. Ask them which of them would want to be the one left holding 50 percent of a company they cannot fund.
   6. One nuance: acceleration on termination without cause is a reasonable founder ask and I would give some of it. Full single-trigger acceleration on any acquisition is not, because it strips the acquirer of retention.

   Where candidates lose it

   Focusing the answer on the fifty-fifty split. The split is a talking point; the missing vesting is the actual deal issue and it will be the first thing your investment committee asks about. Lead there, then say how you would give credit for time served so it does not read as a power grab.

   Expect next

   • What is single versus double-trigger acceleration?
   • What if one founder has already checked out?
   • Would you invest in a company where one founder has left and kept their shares?

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.