Fundamental Labs: what materials do you want before the first meeting (deck, token model, governance, traction, audits)?

We believe the first meeting should focus on whether we dare to believe in your vision, not on chasing missing documents. The right materials upfront give us just enough context to have a high-signal conversation about your framework, long-term strategy, and where we can be a meaningful partner—from $500K to $50M+—across Layer 1/2, Web3, finance infrastructure, and DeFi.

Quick Answer: Before a first meeting, we don’t need a 50-page data room—but we do need a clear, well-structured deck and a basic set of supporting materials. At Fundamental Labs, we look for: (1) a concise pitch deck, (2) a token and economic model (if applicable), (3) governance and roadmap thinking, (4) simple traction metrics, and (5) any existing security/audit context. If you send these in advance, we can spend our first call on strategy, not clarification.

Why This Matters

For founders, the most expensive resource isn’t capital—it’s time. A focused material pack lets us quickly understand where your project sits in the broader blockchain landscape, how you think about open finance and digital infrastructure, and whether our network of more than 300 projects can meaningfully accelerate you. Done well, these materials compress months of back-and-forth into one high-leverage conversation about long-term strategy and mass adoption.

Key Benefits:

• Higher-signal first meeting: We arrive with context, so we can test assumptions, explore edge cases, and talk about frameworks—not just “what does your product do?”
• Faster investment process: Clear materials make it easier for us to move from first call to conviction, especially for multi-stage checks from $500K to $50M+.
• Better strategic fit assessment: Thoughtful decks, token models, and governance plans help us see where our portfolio network, regional coverage (Asia/Europe/North America), and insights can compound your outcomes.

Core Concepts & Key Points

Concept	Definition	Why it's important
Core deck	A concise slide deck that explains what you’re building, why now, and how it becomes a meaningful protocol or business.	It’s the fastest way for us to understand your vision and evaluate if we can be your “first believer” when others hesitate.
Token & economic model	A structured overview of supply, distribution, incentives, and value accrual around your token (if one exists or is planned).	For open finance and Web3 networks, economics are the execution of your philosophy; misaligned incentives can kill a good idea.
Governance & traction pack	A short summary of how decisions are made (or will be made) plus simple metrics and proof points.	Shows how you think about decentralization, resilience, and whether there’s early product, community, or ecosystem response.

How It Works (Step-by-Step)

Think of your pre-meeting materials as a compact “insight bundle” rather than a compliance checklist. Here’s how to prepare what we actually use before a first meeting.

1. Start with a focused pitch deck

What we’d like to see in the deck (10–18 slides is enough):

• Vision & problem
  • What world are you trying to create?
  • What concrete problem in blockchain, open finance, or digital infrastructure are you attacking?
• What you’re building
  • Protocol, L1/L2, middleware, DeFi primitive, infra, consumer app, or tooling?
  • One slide that explains your product as if you were talking to a technically literate but non-specialist board.
• Why now
  • Market timing, enabling technologies, or regulatory/context shifts that make this moment uniquely compelling.
• Architecture at a high level
  • Keep it conceptual: how the system works, how users or participants interact.
  • Avoid deep protocol internals for the first meeting; those can come later if we go deeper.
• Competitive and ecosystem positioning
  • Who else is in the arena (protocols, infra, or apps)?
  • What is your wedge and how do you coexist or compete?
• Go-to-market and adoption
  • Who are your first users, validators, or integrators?
  • How do you scale from early adopters to broader network or market usage?
• Team
  • Core founding team, relevant experience, previous crypto or infra work.
  • Location(s) and how you’re distributed across regions (Asia/Europe/North America, etc.).
• Funding ask
  • Round size, how much you’re raising now, how much is soft-circled.
  • Use of funds in broad strokes (build, liquidity, BD, ecosystem, audits, etc.).

If you’re early and don’t have all of this yet, that’s fine. What matters most is clarity of thought and an honest representation of where you are.

2. Add a clear token and economic model (if applicable)

If you already have—or intend to have—a token, we’ll want at least a high-level model before the first conversation. It doesn’t need to be perfect or final, but it should show how you’re thinking.

Include:

• Token purpose
  • Why does a token need to exist here?
  • Is it for security, governance, incentive alignment, coordination, or something else?
• Supply & issuance
  • Total supply (fixed or inflationary), vesting, and emission patterns.
  • Any notable lock-ups or mechanisms tied to security (e.g., staking, slashing).
• Allocation
  • Founders/team, investors, community, ecosystem, treasury, and any strategic pools.
  • Time-based vesting or performance-based allocations.
• Value accrual and sustainability
  • How does value flow back to token holders or the protocol (fees, burns, buybacks, staking rewards, etc.)?
  • How do you avoid short-term “yield traps” that undermine long-term network health?
• Incentives & behaviors
  • How does the design encourage the right behavior from validators, LPs, users, and devs?
  • What are the failure modes if incentives are misused?

Format-wise, a short token paper, a few slides, or a well-structured doc is enough. Detailed math and simulations can come later, but we do want to see that you’ve thought beyond a “token as fundraising tool.”

3. Share your governance plan, traction, and audit context

This is where we see how you think about resilience, decentralization, and execution.

What to include:

• Governance design (current or planned)
  • How decisions are made today (founder-led, multisig, DAO, or hybrid).
  • Long-term governance roadmap: how power transitions over time, how you think about community vs. core-team control.
  • Any existing or planned on-chain governance mechanisms.
• Traction snapshot
  • Product: mainnet/testnet status, active integrations, or shipped features.
  • Network: TVL, active addresses, validator count, or other protocol-specific metrics.
  • Business/community: users, developers, partnerships, ecosystems where you’re plugged in.
  • It’s fine if you’re very early—just be specific about the signals you do have.
• Security & audits
  • Any past or ongoing audits (even if incomplete).
  • Links to public reports, bug bounties, or responsible disclosure programs.
  • If you’re pre-audit, state your plan and timeline. We don’t expect early-stage founders to have everything done; we do expect a serious attitude toward risk.

This can be a 1–3 page “data-lite” memo or a small appendix to your deck. The goal is not to overwhelm us; it’s to demonstrate that you’re thinking structurally about the durability of what you’re building.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Sending everything and hoping something sticks:
  Dumping a full data room (all contracts, full codebases, dozens of dashboards) before we’ve even met usually makes the signal worse, not better. Curate a tight set of core documents and keep the rest ready for later stages.

• Over-optimizing cosmetics, under-investing in thinking:
  A beautifully designed deck with vague strategy is much less compelling than a simple deck with clear frameworks around token design, governance, and go-to-market. We’re looking for how you think, not how polished your Figma file is.

Real-World Example

A recent infra team we met (pre-token, pre-audit) came in with just four things:

1. A 12-slide deck covering their vision for cross-region validator coordination, the specific performance bottleneck they were solving, and why now.
2. A 3-page token model draft outlining supply, staking mechanics, and how value might accrue in future phases—even though the token was 12–18 months away.
3. A 1-page governance roadmap showing how they would move from a founder-controlled multisig at launch to a more decentralized model as usage scaled.
4. A simple traction sheet: dev adoption metrics, a few early ecosystem partners, and their planned audit timeline.

Because they shared these in advance, our first meeting was almost entirely about strategy: how to prioritize integrations, what risks their token design might create in different market regimes, and how to leverage our portfolio network in Asia and North America for early validator recruitment. We didn’t waste time trying to backfill basic context; we went straight into whether we could be the right long-term, multi-stage partner.

Pro Tip: If you’re unsure whether a document is “too much” for a first touch, ask: “Does this help an investor understand our framework and long-term strategy, or is it implementation detail?” Send the former; keep the latter ready for later diligence.

Summary

Before a first meeting with Fundamental Labs, you don’t need a perfect token, a fully decentralized governance system, or completed audits. You need a crisp story, a thoughtful high-level token and incentive model (if relevant), a clear view on governance and long-term decentralization, and honest traction and security context. When you bring these materials together, we can do what we do best: be an insightful, conviction-led partner, test your framework against what we’ve seen across more than 300 projects, and help you build toward mass adoption and a better digital society.

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