The Navigators
Gorilla Navigator
A Navigator is a structured sparring partner for decisions you cannot cheaply undo. You describe a live situation, it asks what you actually believe and what you are assuming, and only then does it lay out the options that are actionable in your real situation. It does not decide for you and it does not give a generic answer. Choose the Navigator that matches your seat and take a copy.
For running the company. What to have evidence for before you raise, hire ahead of demand, or commit to a direction you cannot cheaply undo.
When it is useful. Before a decision you cannot easily reverse: a hire, a firing, a pricing change, a pivot, a term sheet reply. When something felt off in today's numbers and you want to know whether it matters. A session takes a few minutes. If your question actually belongs to the board, it says so rather than answering at the wrong level.
How it works with you
Founders make most consequential calls in the gaps between other things, usually with nobody in the room whose only job is to ask the uncomfortable question. You describe your situation in your own words. Before it offers anything, it asks a few tight questions about what you believe, what you are assuming, and what you have and have not seen. Everything that follows is built on your answers, so the same question from two founders in different situations produces different options. Most of the paths a company theoretically has are not open to you this month. Each module discards those and returns one to five that are genuinely valid in your situation, each with the evidence it rests on and what it costs you if that evidence turns out to be wrong. You can then run your intended next step through it before you commit to it. Where the question turns on a number you have not worked out, such as runway under different scenarios or what your funnel really shows, it proposes the relevant worksheet and fills it in with you from your own figures.
Working with your own material
You can bring your plan, your pipeline, last month's numbers, or an offer you have received. The Navigator reads them against the framework and shows where the holes are, where an opportunity is sitting unnoticed, and which of your claims are still assumptions.
Customer conversations get read differently. Paste in call notes, discovery transcripts or a month of support threads, and it maps them onto the proof stack: which layers your conversations actually evidence, to what level, and which layers you have been asserting rather than testing. A founder usually knows the conversations went well. This tells you what they proved.
What it will not do
It will not decide for you, will not flatter the plan, and will not invent a fact you did not give it. When there is no strong match for your situation, it says so. When the evidence is not there, the answer is not yet, with what would settle it and by when.
For governing. How a board and chair set the evidence standard before an irreversible decision reaches the table.
When it is useful. Preparing the pack. The evening before the meeting, when a director wants to arrive with a sharper question rather than a stronger opinion. Between meetings, when a term sheet, an acquisition approach or a co-founder conflict cannot wait for the next date. Any decision touching cross border operations, regulated activity, employment, tax or securities is flagged for jurisdiction specific legal review, because a proof score is not a substitute for that.
How it works with you
A board meets a handful of times a year, while the decisions that shape the company arrive on their own schedule and are often handled with a pack read the night before. You bring a live company or board question. It asks for your own reading first, then tightens it: what would you need to see to be wrong, what is the one assumption the plan stands on, whose decision is this actually. Your answers shape everything that follows. What comes back is not a recommendation but one to five valid paths, each carrying the proof the board would need before it could responsibly approve it, and what the company is exposed to if that proof turns out thinner than the pack implied. A direction the board is leaning towards can be tested the same way before it reaches the table. A board governs consequences without taking over execution, and the Navigator holds that line even when the question invites the board to run the company. For each question it names the relevant board instrument, such as a proof position reading, a gate checklist or a CEO read scorecard, and helps you complete it from your own material rather than pointing at a template.
Working with your own material
Bring the board pack, the budget, the term sheet or the strategy deck. The Navigator reads them against the framework and shows where the pack claims proof it has not demonstrated, where a risk is named but not sized, and where an opportunity is being underplayed.
The board's own instruments are built the same way. A board year clock that places the right question and the right instrument in each slot rather than repeating the same four agenda items; a proof position reading; a gate checklist; a CEO read scorecard. Each is built with you from your own company's situation, not handed over as a template to fill in.
What it will not do
It will not tell the board what to decide, and it will not let a question that belongs to management be answered by the board. The most common board failure is the same everywhere: the board supplies the answer and management executes a plan it never owned. The Navigator is designed to catch that, including when the person asking is the one about to do it.
For allocating capital. How to ask for stage-matched evidence in angel and early-stage rounds, and what thin evidence usually hides.
When it is useful. After the first meeting, before you have decided you like them. During diligence, to argue the other side of your thesis and keep arguing it after you stop enjoying it. When a founder asks for help and you need to know whether it is one bounded thing or the start of running the company. At every stage of an exit, arguing the buyer's case rather than your own.
How it works with you
You invest your own money and stay close enough to carry the consequences. That is the strength of the angel seat and also its exposure: the deck is polished, the founder is convincing, and the pressure to decide arrives faster than the evidence. Bring the situation, whether it is a company you are evaluating, a portfolio company asking for help, a secondary offer or a bridge round. It asks what you believe and why, then keeps asking: did you see that or were you told it, how many closed outcomes are there, how long is the cycle, what would make you wrong. Each module returns one to five paths you can actually stand behind, each with the evidence it depends on and what the position costs you if that evidence does not hold. It separates what you observed directly from what you were told and from what someone synthesised. A move you are already minded to make can be run through the same test before you make it. Where a question needs numbers, such as a waterfall, a cohort table or an ownership model, it proposes the relevant instrument and builds it with you, for you to check.
Working with your own material
Attach the deck, the data room summary, the term sheet or the cap table. The Navigator reads them against the framework and separates what the company has shown from what it has claimed, flags the gaps in the story, and surfaces upside the founder has not articulated.
The instruments run on your own numbers. A return model that shows what this entry price has to deliver to matter to your portfolio; a waterfall that shows what you actually receive under the terms in front of you rather than the headline; a cohort table; an ownership model through the next two rounds. Each is built with you from the figures you have, and left for you to check.
What it will not do
It will not score the company and will not tell you whether to invest. Those are your decisions, and a model that makes them for you is confidence without exposure. It will not supply a number the company did not give you and will not treat the company's own narrative as fact. Where evidence is missing the answer is not yet, with what would settle it and by when. For an investor that is a real answer, not a deferral.