> Pricing access to founder time improves signal quality in investor conversations.

Background:

In early fundraising, founders spend a lot of time on low-signal meetings. The scheduling cost is asymmetric: founders prepare, investors explore cheaply. There is no native commitment mechanism beyond social norms.

This project implements a minimal market for founder time.

How it works: 1. Investors place a bid for a 1:1 meeting 2. A minimum bid is enforced 3. Agenda, availability, and time zone are required at bid time 4. If the meeting doesn’t happen, the bid is refunded

Bidders can opt in or out of public attribution on a map of AI/data investors

The bid is not payment for capital access. It’s a commitment signal. The refund rule prevents extraction.

Implementation notes: * Built quickly on Replit * Stripe for payments and receipts * No CRM, no automated follow-ups * Admin actions handled manually via the database * Intentionally small surface area

What this is not: * Not a scheduling app * Not a marketplace for advisors * Not “pay to pitch” * Not optimized for scale or revenue

You can try it here: https://investor.data.flowers/

Viewing requires no login. Bidding requires payment.

Questions I’m interested in discussing: * Does this produce better signaling than social heuristics? * Does refundable pricing dominate non-refundable fees? * What strategic behavior does this enable (or discourage)? * Where does this fail under adversarial or repeated interaction?

This is an experiment, not a thesis. Curious to hear critiques from people who’ve built marketplaces or thought about incentive design.