Now deploying to Seed through Series D

Part human.
Part diploma.
All valuation.

PhDs. Ivy League MBAs. Ex-FAANG Principals. Former Deputy Undersecretaries of Something. We place them in your company as Forward Deployed Mascots™ — so investors see a pedigree instead of your three guys in a WeWork.

Browse Inventory Read the Terms of Uselessness
A very credentialed man in a suit, doing nothing, magnificently
UNIT FDM-07 // ONLINE
SCANNING ROOM FOR LPs...
TARGET: SERIES A
CONFIDENCE: 99.7%
PRODUCTIVITY: 0.000
PRESTIGE: ∞
EX-GOOGLE L8
STANFORD GSB
ROLE: EXIST
▲ PRE-MONEY +$4.2M PER PHD ON SLIDE 2■ "EX-GOOGLE" NOW TRADING AT 3.1× "GOOGLE"▲ HARVARD LANYARD FUTURES UP 18%▼ ACTUAL REVENUE: IRRELEVANT■ ADVISORY BOARD SIZE CORRELATES 0.94 WITH TERM SHEET SPEED▲ "FORMER WHITE HOUSE" CERTIFIED BEST-IN-CLASS ▲ PRE-MONEY +$4.2M PER PHD ON SLIDE 2■ "EX-GOOGLE" NOW TRADING AT 3.1× "GOOGLE"▲ HARVARD LANYARD FUTURES UP 18%▼ ACTUAL REVENUE: IRRELEVANT■ ADVISORY BOARD SIZE CORRELATES 0.94 WITH TERM SHEET SPEED▲ "FORMER WHITE HOUSE" CERTIFIED BEST-IN-CLASS
// The Problem

Your team is dangerously competent.

You ship. You fix bugs at 3am. Your product works. And yet the term sheet went to the startup with a Stanford professor on the About page who has never once opened their Slack.

Here is the truth the market will not say out loud: capital does not fund output. It funds signaling. Investors are pattern-matchers with fiduciary duties and very little time. Give them a pattern to match.

An empty office
FIG. 1 — Your actual engineers (not pictured; they are working, which unfortunately is not on the cap table).
+340%Average valuation lift when "PhD" appears above the fold*
11 secAverage time a VC spends on your team slide before seeing "ex-Meta" and nodding
0Pull requests merged by our placed assets since 2014. A record we are proud of.

* Figures generated by a McKinsey alumnus we placed at our own company. He was very confident about them.

// Deployment Sequence

Three steps to perceived excellence

01

Select

Browse our inventory of laminated achievers. Filter by alma mater, former employer, TEDx count, or how thoughtfully they can stare out a window during a podcast.

02

Deploy

Your Mascot arrives pre-installed on your website, your deck, and your LinkedIn. Field units attend dinners, nod at panels, and say "at Google we used to…" on demand.

03

Do Not Assign Work

This is not a suggestion. Mascots are display-grade. Attempting to put one on a sprint will void your warranty and possibly cause a 40-slide strategy memo.

// Current Inventory

Forward Deployed Mascots™

Each asset is certified, credentialed, and calibrated to radiate trust at a 15-meter range. Output stats are measured and audited. They are all zero.

FlagshipSKU FDM-01

Dr. Reginald Thorne, PhD, PhD

Two doctorates · ex-Google Distinguished

Wrote a 2009 paper cited 14,000 times, mostly by people who did not read it. Has not used a computer since Chrome got tabs.

Prestige98
Gravitas94
Output0
Best SellerSKU FDM-02

Victoria Ashby-Kane, MBA

Wharton · ex-McKinsey · ex-BCG · ex-Bain

Has consulted on 41 transformations, none of which she stayed for. Will convert any problem into a 2×2 matrix in under nine seconds.

Prestige91
Frameworks100
Output0
Ex-FAANGSKU FDM-07

Bradley Covington III

ex-Meta L8 · ex-Amazon · ex-Apple (contractor)

Led the cross-functional initiative that moved a button 4px to the left. Survived 11 reorgs by never being on any org chart long enough to be cut.

Prestige88
Comp Expect.MAX
Output0
AcademiaSKU FDM-11

Prof. Emeritus Harold Weiss

Chair, Dept. of Theoretical Something · Nobel-adjacent

Once shared an elevator with a Nobel laureate and has spoken about it at every dinner since. Perfect for your "Scientific Advisory Board" slide.

Prestige96
Anecdotes99
Output0
Thought LeaderSKU FDM-14

Dr. Elena Marsh

Stanford Fellow · TEDx (Pasadena, 2017)

Has given the same keynote, "The Future Is Human," 212 times. Available for podcasts, panels, and being photographed laughing near a whiteboard.

Prestige85
Stage Pres.97
Output0
RhodesSKU FDM-19

Julian Fairchild-Sato

Rhodes Scholar · ex-Deputy Undersecretary

Spent four years in government "shaping policy," a phrase he will not elaborate on. Turns any pitch into a "public-private partnership opportunity."

Prestige93
Name-Drops100
Output0
AI HaloSKU FDM-23

Fiona Gale

ex-OpenAI (summer intern, 6 wks)

Our highest-yield unit per dollar. Simply listing "ex-OpenAI" on your team page has been shown to add a zero to any number in the same paragraph.

Prestige90
AI Aura100
Output0
RefurbishedSKU FDM-31

Marcus Webb, "Founder-in-Residence"

2× exited (acqui-hired, then shut down)

Has "seen this movie before." Will say so in every meeting. Investors find his unshakable calm deeply reassuring. It is not calm. It is idle.

Prestige80
Vibes95
Output0
// Handling Protocol

Prime Directives

Every CredentialHire unit ships with hard-coded firmware. These directives cannot be overridden by founders, boards, or reality.

CH-OS v4.20 // UNIT FDM-07 // DIRECTIVES LOADED
1. RAISE THE ROUND
2. APPEAR IN THE TEAM SLIDE, ABOVE THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT THE PRODUCT
3. ATTEND THE DINNER. ORDER THE WINE. SAY "AT SCALE."
4. NEVER TOUCH THE CODEBASE
5. ████████████████████████████ [CLASSIFIED — VESTING SCHEDULE]
>

Approved Uses

  • Headshot on the About page, slightly larger than the CTO's
  • Quoted in press release: "We are thrilled to…"
  • Seated visibly in the first five minutes of the pitch
  • Posting "Humbled to join…" on LinkedIn (draft provided)
  • Standing at the booth at Web Summit, holding a coffee
  • Being "on a call with Sequoia" (not a call, not with Sequoia)

Prohibited Uses

  • Jira tickets. Unit will cite "strategic altitude" and enter sleep mode
  • Deadlines of any kind, including the concept of "Tuesday"
  • Spreadsheets with formulas (read-only display spreadsheets OK)
  • Customer support. Unit has never met a customer and intends to keep it that way
  • Being asked "so what did you actually do at Google?"
  • Direct sunlight, code review, and accountability
// Valuation Engine

Calculate your imaginary upside

Our proprietary model is trained on 10,000 pitch decks and zero business outcomes.

PROJECTED PRE-MONEY VALUATION
$3.1M
≈ 78× revenue
EXPECTED WORK OUTPUT FROM MASCOTS: 0.00 HRS/WK
— WE INTERRUPT THIS LANDING PAGE FOR A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR —
I'd fund that
for a dollar!

Put a Harvard man on your cap table and watch the term sheets roll in. Side effects may include down rounds, a 14-person "Office of the CEO," and engineers quietly updating their résumés.

// Acquisition Plans

Lease a legacy

All plans billed annually in advance, in cash or in equity. Preferably both.

Lanyard

$9,999 / month
For pre-seed founders with a Notion page and a dream
  • 1 headshot license for your About page
  • "Advisor" title, unpaid, unconsulted
  • LinkedIn "Congrats!" comment on your announcement
  • Physical presence
  • Any work whatsoever
Deploy Lanyard

Keynote

$48,000 / month
For Seed–Series A. Our most "strategic" package
  • Fully credentialed Forward Deployed Mascot
  • Attends up to 3 investor meetings / month
  • Quarterly vague tweet about "the future of your space"
  • Business-casual fleece with your logo, worn on camera
  • Opinions about your actual product
Deploy Keynote

Board Seat

2.5% equity + carry
For Series B+ and companies with "a story"
  • Ex-FAANG VP or tenured Ivy chair (your pick)
  • "Chief Visionary Officer" title
  • Unlimited podcast appearances
  • Will blame "macro" when things go wrong
  • Will be anywhere near things going wrong
Deploy Board Seat
// Field Reports

Founders love us

"We added Dr. Thorne to the deck on a Monday. By Friday we had three term sheets and he still hadn't figured out our Zoom link."— CEO, AI-powered toaster startup (Series A, $40M)
"I asked our Mascot to review a pricing page once. He sent back a 30-slide deck titled 'Reimagining Value.' I deserved that. It was in the manual."— Founder, B2B SaaS (now a cautionary blog post)
"Our engineers built the whole product. Our ex-Google advisor was on the TechCrunch cover. That's the system working as designed."— COO, Logistics-for-Logistics platform
// Frequently Avoided Questions

FAQ

Can my Mascot do some light work? Just a little?

No. Credentialed units are calibrated for presence, not production. Light work is how it starts. Next thing you know they're "owning a workstream," and you've lost six months and a sales VP.

Isn't this just fraud with a nicer font?

Every credential is 100% real. Every degree was earned. Every FAANG badge was worn. We simply sell them in the way the market already buys them. If that feels like fraud, please take it up with the market.

What if an investor asks the Mascot a technical question?

All units are factory-trained on four universal responses: "It's a great question," "We're thinking about that at the platform level," "Let me loop in the team," and a long, meaningful pause.

Do Mascots require equity?

Yes. More than your first engineer. Less than your landlord. Vesting is immediate, because they're done the moment they appear on the website.

What happens when the company fails?

The Mascot is automatically re-deployed to your nearest competitor with an updated bio: "Previously helped scale [YOUR COMPANY]." Nothing is ever lost. Only recycled.

// The Future Is Decorative

Your product is the engine.
We sell the hood ornament.

Twelve credentials. Zero commits. Infinite runway (for us).

Acquire a Mascot Today