The six judges
The lenses#
| Judge | Reads |
|---|---|
| J-P1 Problem | The pain, the user, the urgency, and the alternatives a deck claims to beat |
| J-P2 Solution Logic | Product logic, differentiation, and how coherently the solution holds together |
| J-P3 Business Value / Market | The market, the value, and how the business intends to make money |
| J-P4 Pitch Quality | Clarity, narrative, structure and delivery |
| J-P5 Team Readiness | Founder-market fit, skills, and the ability to execute |
| J-P6 Feasibility | Roadmap, resources, and operational realism |
Not every judge influences every score#
A lens contributes to a dimension at one of four levels: primary (1.00) drives the score, secondary (0.50) adds important support, advisory (0.25) provides context, and not scored means no influence at all.
| Judge | P1 Problem | P2 Solution | P3 Market | P4 GTM | P5 Team | P6 Feasibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J-P1 Problem | primary | advisory | advisory | — | — | advisory |
| J-P2 Solution Logic | secondary | primary | advisory | advisory | — | secondary |
| J-P3 Business Value / Market | advisory | advisory | primary | primary | — | advisory |
| J-P4 Pitch Quality | advisory | advisory | advisory | advisory | advisory | advisory |
| J-P5 Team Readiness | — | — | advisory | advisory | primary | secondary |
| J-P6 Feasibility | advisory | secondary | secondary | secondary | secondary | primary |
Two things are worth reading off this table.
Pitch Quality is advisory everywhere. It is visible in the report and it never drives a dimension. This is the structural answer to "does a polished deck win here?" — presentation quality matters, but it cannot outrank weak evidence on problem, market, team or feasibility.
Team Readiness does not score Problem or Solution. A lens only scores where it has a legitimate read. That is what keeps a strong impression of the founders from bleeding into every dimension.
Why independence, structurally#
Each judge evaluates in an isolated context. Three consequences:
- No anchoring. A lens cannot converge on another's number, so agreement between them is evidence rather than an artifact.
- Halo effect is split. Dimensions are read by separate judges, so one strong impression cannot carry the whole scorecard.
- Containment. An instruction hidden in a deck that reaches one context cannot reach another. See Prompt-injection safety.
The other bias controls#
| Risk | Control |
|---|---|
| Halo effect | Dimensions split across separate judges |
| Generic scoring | Dimension-specific prompts and criteria per judge |
| Overweighting presentation | Pitch Quality visible, never dominant |
| Hidden disagreement | Spread plus the judge contribution matrix |
| AI overreach | The AI Total Score is advisory; the human decides |
| Assumption-filling | Missing evidence becomes a gap or a question, never a guess |
Where the method comes from#
The Pitch Competition dimension matrix combines three established startup-evaluation lenses rather than being assembled from prompt tricks:
- Lean Startup — hypothesis and problem-solution logic, feeding P1 and P2.
- Customer Development — customer, pain and validation evidence, feeding P1 and P2.
- VC Due Diligence — market, business model, team and feasibility, feeding P3, P5 and P6.
It is thesis-first by design: a polished deck should not score high if the problem is vague, the customer unclear and the business logic thin.
The hackathon panel#
In Hackathon mode the panel is five reviewer roles — Innovation, Technical Execution, Business Value, Pitch Quality and Feasibility — reading every submission across an execution-weighted rubric. See Hackathons.
Next steps#
- Dimensions P1–P6 — the six questions and their anchors.
- How the score is built — how routing weights turn six reads into one number.
- Disagreement and spread — what happens when the lenses do not agree.