Over the last eighteen months, the team at Astronaut Capital and Picolo Research have interviewed well over 200 new ICO’s that were, at some point in time, seeking prospective funding from asset managers or support from research houses.

Unfortunately, even if we were to hire another 10 analysts, we would still only be scraping the tip of the iceberg in terms of the sheer volume of new token sales that are pitched to us on a daily basis.

In light of this, we have to take a very unique approach to introductory calls with management teams.

Looking for Red Flags

Looking for red flags is the fastest way to streamline due diligence.

Our intention during a call with founders is not to uncover what is great about a new ICO. Our intention is to simply, and efficiently, bring to surface any ‘red flags’ that would stop us from spending time on the subsequent phases of research and due diligence.

Think of it as a more lengthy filtration system.

Everything great about an upcoming ICO is already published. Everything which isn’t so great, however, is not.

We already have the whitepaper/pitch/IM/SAFT that should in most cases be enough collateral for research, however, what parts of the story are we missing that could potentially have a negative impact on the price in the future?

Despite how transparent token sales claim to be, calls with the management teams allow you to ‘read between the lines’ and uncover anything that doesn’t quite smell right.

Today, for the benefit of the DYOR (do your own research) community, I’m going to share with you the top 8 questions you should be asking the founders of new ICO’s.