Floodgate

Startups need different mental models than companies

Maples notes that Buffett and Munger's investing mental models (operating history, competitive moat, customers) simply don't apply to startups, which have no history, no moat, no product, and no customers. Floodgate spent years developing roughly 30 mental models specifically for evaluating startups.

“If Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have 90 mental models and they don't apply to startup investing, well, what are the mental models for startup investing then? And so we've spent years, right, just being students of that question. And you know, we've probably got about 30 or so that we've developed.”