Services / Design due diligence
for investors
“The technical diligence came back clean. Nobody looked at what it’s like to use.”
Design due diligence for investors.
I read the product itself, before a deal or across a portfolio you already own: whether it does what the company says it does, where it leaks, and what that is costing. It runs on interviews as well as the product, because what you are buying is the capability that made it.
€9,995
Design due diligence
It runs to your deal timetable.
Amsterdam, working across Europe and internationally.
What the pack leaves out
The diligence pack tells you the product ships, what it costs to build and how big the market is. It does not tell you whether the product is any good to use, whether the company can tell the difference, or whether the experience holds together once the roadmap widens. That risk goes into the deal unpriced.
The read
Part of it is the product, against what the company says it is for. Three questions, in that order: what has been promised, whether it is delivered, and whether anyone is checking. Most companies are strong on the first two and have nothing on the third. The experience then drifts as the company grows, and the drift shows up in the numbers a long way downstream of the decision that caused it.
The rest is interviews. A data room shows you what a company has produced. It cannot show you whether the team can produce it again once the roadmap widens, once the founder stops holding the design opinion single-handed, or once the people who made the good decisions have vested. That comes out of talking to them.
The method is my own, and it was built at scale. I spent twelve years in Philips’ consumer business, the last six as the most senior designer across the €3.9B business, where the method made experience coherence settable and measurable. I led the go-to-market design for OneBlade, a new category that reached €55M in its first year.
What you get
A written read: where the capability sits, what is missing, what the gaps are costing, and the order in which to fix them. Short enough to go into the investment memo, specific enough to argue with.
Before a deal it sits alongside the financial and commercial picture, and what it finds can be priced in or made a condition.
On a company already in the portfolio it points at what comes next. Sometimes the difference was never decided at the top: that is Decide the difference. Sometimes it is decided and leaking in delivery: that is Make it hold. Sometimes what is missing is standing design leadership: that is the seat.
If there is nothing there, I say so, in writing.
When it is not the right fit
You already know what is wrong with the product and want hands to fix it. That is delivery work. Hire the designers directly, and I am happy to help you pick them.
Frequently asked
- Who is this for?
- The board member who has to ask why a product that tests well is not selling. The investor who has to price that answer before signing.
- Does this replace financial or legal diligence?
- No. It is a product and design read that runs alongside the rest of the diligence.
- Is this the audit with an investor label on it?
- No. The audit is a week’s read on a company’s own difference, done for that company. Design due diligence adds interviews with the team, and it is written for the person buying. Different work, different fee.
- How does it work across a portfolio?
- The fee above covers one company. A read across several is scoped separately, in a conversation.
- How does this connect to the method?
- The read runs against Differentia, the method under every Flowdonia engagement. The methodology page covers it in full.