# What Must Be True
A discipline, not a framework. For any investment thesis, list the 3–7 conditions that **must all hold simultaneously** for the business to succeed at the proposed terms. Each condition becomes a de-risking milestone; capital should stage against them.
## Template
For each condition, capture four fields:
- **Condition** — a falsifiable statement about the world.
- **Current evidence status** — AGAINST / INSUFFICIENT / MIXED / SUPPORTED (see [[Evidence Hierarchy]]).
- **Test** — the concrete, cheap-to-run check that would move the status.
- **If violated** — what the failure mode looks like, and whether the thesis survives.
## Why it is useful
- Forces separation of *judgement* from *evidence*. A vague "the team will execute" becomes "the team will ship module X to paying customers by quarter Y."
- Makes the thesis legible to future-you. When the deal reviews in 18 months, you can tell whether reality matched the conditions.
- Decouples passing from disliking. Many passes are specific conditions not yet met, not a verdict on the company. A pass with a clear WMBT list is a *re-engageable* pass.
## Common WMBT conditions by company type
For a vertical AI agent SaaS, see [[AI Agent Vertical SaaS DD MOC]] §49.
For deep-tech hardware / IP, see [[Technical DD Framework]].
For services-to-platform transitions, see [[Consultancy-to-Platform Transition]].
Related: [[Evidence Hierarchy]], [[Technical DD Framework]], [[Investing/Investment Thesis Structure]]
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Tags: #dd #investing #firstprinciple #systems