How ACX evaluates a new product thesis
By Priya Sharma
Market size matters less than founder-market fit. We look for operators who have lived the problem and can ship a v1 in ninety days.
We see hundreds of ideas. Most fail our first filter not because the market is small, but because the founder has not lived the problem deeply enough to know what v1 should actually do.
Our evaluation starts with evidence: customer conversations, workflow maps, prototypes — anything that shows the applicant understands the job to be done. We care less about TAM slides and more about whether this person can ship a credible product in ninety days with studio support.
When we say yes, we assign a founding member as product steward, plug the team into shared infra, and set a single milestone — a working product in market, not a pitch deck. Everything else follows from that.
Keep reading
