The Challenge
As a pre-seed fund, Zach Ellis faces a unique challenge: he needs to make high-quality investment decisions quickly while maintaining the ability to understand technical sectors outside his immediate expertise. His goal is straightforward but demanding: "make the same high quality decisions faster."
Ellis emphasizes that this requires the ability to exercise judgment under uncertainty in inherently new and ambiguous spaces where there's no clear path to yes or no answers.
Sophisticated Implementation
Rather than a simple tool, South Loop is working with Empromptu AI to build a custom system that encodes their specific investment philosophy and mental model into an AI-powered workflow.
Iterative Approach
The engagement is iterative—starting with pitch deck comparison, then expanding to other use cases as the system proves its value.
How Empromptu AI Adds Value
1. Pitch Deck Analysis & Comparison
Empromptu AI is building a tool that compares South Loop's investment candidates' pitch decks against market benchmarks. The tool:
- •Analyzes pitch decks to identify whether founders show judgment under uncertainty
- •Highlights specific passages where founders demonstrate their unique insight
- •Compares the company to market sector standards
- •Identifies what makes the company stand out
2. Intelligent Question Generation
The system generates targeted follow-up questions for Zach to ask founders, specifically designed around his mental model:
- •Questions that test judgment under uncertainty
- •Questions that clarify ambiguous situations
- •Questions that identify whether the founder is inventing something new vs. replicating existing solutions
3. Sector Research & Intelligence
For technical sectors outside Ellis's expertise, Empromptu AI helps him:
- •Quickly come up to speed on new technologies
- •Understand technical landscapes without lengthy research
- •Gain enough context to ask intelligent questions
- •Maintain meeting efficiency by reducing prep time
