Returns are what a pitch leads with. But returns describe a deal. They don’t tell you much about the company running it.

In The Operator Question, Tanya Muro judges an operator, meaning the company running the deal, on five traits.

The five traits

1. Track record. The full one, including the deals that went badly, and how investors were treated during them. A slide of winners is a selection, not a history. (See Track Record Showed 10 Deals. There Were 14.)

2. Depth. Could the team still run your investment if the person pitching you left? Tanya looks for a real team and real processes, not one founder surrounded by titles.

3. Their own money. How much did they put in themselves? And do they earn more when you earn more, or do they get paid either way?

4. Communication. Anyone can write a good update in a good quarter. What matters is how they talk to investors when things go wrong.

5. Tough times. Interest rates jumped from 2022 on. What did this company actually do when conditions broke from its plan?

Where to find the answers

A pitch won’t tell you most of this. It is built to make you feel confident, not to show you how a company behaves under pressure.

Past investors will. That’s why Tanya suggests you call three of them before you invest, including one from the deal that did the worst.

Tanya’s point is that operator quality is a profile, not a single number. A company can be strong on some of these and weak on others, and knowing which is the whole point.

Which of the five would you check first?

This post is based on a one-minute video on Tanya Muro’s YouTube channel. For education only, not financial advice.