I recently sat in on a Georgia Tech Venture Capital Club event where students presented investment theses on various startups. It was a full-circle moment for me; I actually led the investment rounds for the companies they analyzed.

Watching them work, I was struck by a clear realization: the rigor required to be a great investor has many parallels to the rigor required to be a world-class founder. Whether you are writing the check or building the product, these three skills are non-negotiable.

1. Customer Conversations Over Desk Research

You can’t understand a market from a spreadsheet. For founders, constant customer discovery is the only way to ensure you’re solving a real pain point. For investors, talking to potential users is the only way to validate if a “vision” aligns with market reality. Desk research provides the map, but talking to customers tells you what’s actually happening on the ground.

2. Anticipating the “Wrong” Forecast

In my experience, the only certainty about a financial forecast is that it will be wrong. Founders must prepare for “Scenario B” and “Scenario C” so they aren’t paralyzed when the market shifts. Similarly, investors must model both the “moonshot” potential and the catastrophic risks. Resilience comes from being prepared for the outcomes you didn’t plan for.

3. Cultivating the Unique Insight

The best founders see a gap in the market that others ignore. If an investor only chases the deals that everyone else loves, they’ll overpay for average returns. I was told early in my career: If people don’t think you’re crazy on 30-40% of your deals, you aren’t taking enough risk. True alpha—in building or investing—comes from unique insights that the consensus hasn’t caught onto yet.

This overlap is exactly why many of the best investors started as entrepreneurs. They aren’t just looking at numbers; they’re looking for the traits they once needed to survive.

What other skills do you think belong on both sides of the cap table?