I agree that baseball is easily the most "rigorously constrained game" there is, but I don't think that's reason to dismiss the use of more/better metrics in as

I agree that baseball is easily the most "rigorously constrained game" there is, but I don't think that's reason to dismiss the use of more/better metrics in assessing startup founders and teams. The same argument you make was once used to dismiss the value of metrics in other more free-flowing and less-constrained sports like basketball, but analytics has become a staple of the sport ever since. [1] And since then, advanced metrics have even found their way into Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), of all things. [2] Sure, starting a company is obviously very different from sports and building a sports team, but I don't think it's THAT different. Sports is essentially a simulation of real life, and I think the move to using advanced metrics in startups is inevitable. If you think about it, even startups are a highly constrained and simplified (i.e. smaller-scale, less people, more uniform "path", etc.) version of running a big business. I see no real reason, besides general skepticism, why metrics cannot be used to improve the startup fundraising process. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APBRmetrics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APBRmetrics [2] http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=8966 http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=8966