The nine things you're asked for before a term sheet exists

Every founder who has sat in a Builders Forum session has heard the same question asked in some form: what does it cost you to borrow money? It is not a trick. It is the first number on the other side of the table, and it is the number most people in the room cannot recite.

Investment readiness is often described as though it were a stage a business arrives at. In practice it is a list, and most of the list is administrative rather than commercial. Registration and tax standing that survive a look. Separated personal and business accounts. Twelve months of statements that reconcile. A cap table that exists in writing. Contracts with the customers you name as traction. Financial statements prepared on a basis someone outside the business would recognise.

None of that makes a business investable on its own. It makes a business legible. A lender cannot price what it cannot read, and an investor asked to take a view on an unpriceable business will simply decline and move on to the next one — not because the idea is weak, but because the diligence is more expensive than the cheque.

The four items founders skip most often are the boring ones: reconciled statements, a written cap table, signed customer contracts, and a clear account of what the last round of money was actually spent on. Each takes days rather than months. Each is worth more at the table than another pass over the pitch deck.