How to tell an investment thesis from a trend piece

We sort venture writing into four sections every week, and the one that causes the most arguments is the thesis bucket. Everything with a prediction in it wants to live there.

The test we settled on is a sentence you have to be able to finish: the opportunity is ___, because ___.

If the first blank is a market, a category or a theme that cuts across sectors, and the second is an argument about why now rather than three years ago, it's a thesis. If you can't fill either blank, it's something else, and usually something good, just not that.

What fails the test

Predictions. "AI will reshape professional services" is a forecast, not a thesis. Nobody can act on it.

Present-state analysis with a forward-looking closing paragraph. If 80% of the piece explains what already happened, it's industry analysis, however confident the last two paragraphs are.

Essays about which business models win. Writing about moats is useful, and it's a framework, not a bet on a market.

Commentary on what other investors are funding. Meta-observation about the asset class isn't a position in it.

What passes

Request-for-startups posts, which are theses in their most honest form: here's the gap, here's why it's open now, bring us this.

"Why now" essays for an emerging category, where the argument turns on something that changed recently, usually cost, capability or regulation.

Roadmaps with named bets rather than named buzzwords.

Why we're strict about it

In a typical week, three to five posts out of a hundred qualify. If the section fills up with ten, it stops meaning anything, and readers learn to skip it. A small thesis section is a feature.

The practical benefit of the test is that it works on your own writing too. If you're drafting a market piece and can't finish that sentence, you probably haven't decided what you believe yet.

The front page ranks by how much a piece actually says, and you can read the sections as they fill up during the week.