Michael ZhaoAPAC / WEB3 / EARLY STAGE
FIELD NOTES / INDEX 01—06

Investment field notes

Each note begins with an early-stage investment question, reconstructs how the headline metric was produced, and defines the evidence still required.

01
Post-investment research / 8 min

Diligence Questions Change after Launch

A live product turns architecture claims into operating evidence. The work shifts toward recurring use, incident response, support load, and the assumptions that no longer fit.

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02
Market entry / 7 min

Put Institutional Constraints on the Product Roadmap

Interest can be abundant while procurement stays still. Compliance, custody, integration, budget, and ownership determine whether an institutional user can proceed.

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03
Technical diligence / 9 min

A Ladder of Evidence for Technical Diligence

Architecture diagrams and audit reports begin the inquiry. Confidence grows when claims connect to code, deployments, incidents, and team response.

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04
Deal structure / 9 min

Map Value Flow before Choosing Token or Equity

A company, protocol, foundation, and token can hold different rights inside one project. The structure only makes sense when value creation and control are traced across them.

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05
Developer ecosystem / 8 min

Developer Retention Lives beyond the Repository

Commit counts describe motion. Retention requires a path from learning to building, deployment, and maintenance—each with different evidence.

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06
Product signal / 7 min

Four Filters for Testnet Traction

Testnet activity is easy to count and hard to interpret. A useful diligence view asks who generated it, what they were trying to accomplish, and whether they returned without a prompt.

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