17 Insights
The Missing Layer of Human Insight Every Investor Needs
Most investors view the human factor as essential to any successful investment. But it’s also the part they have the least insight into before the deal closes.At 17 Insights, we bridge that gap. We embed ourselves within a startup for several days, observing how founders and teams make decisions, collaborate, and handle the real challenges of growth. Through confidential conversations and pattern recognition, we reveal the hidden dynamics, misalignments, and strengths that determine whether a team can truly scale.
Elevate Your View of the Team
“See hidden dynamics, risks, and strengths that drive a company to scale.”In just 2–5 days, we deliver a clear, actionable view of the human dynamics that can drive or derail growth. Our diagnostic focuses on five critical areas:
Founding Team Alignment: Shared vision, trust, alignment, conviction.
Leadership & Management: Role clarity, execution discipline and goal alignment.
Team & Culture: Silent churn, cultural drift, motivation, and early warning signs of toxicity.
Organizational Health: Communication flow, talent quality, retention risk, and burnout signals.
A One-of-a-Kind Lens Into Teams That Scale
"We bridge the gap between costly, time-consuming human due diligence and investor intuition."I’ve spent years scaling startups, leading teams, founding a recruiting agency, and advising founders across Europe. Again and again, I saw the same patterns: founders hiring under pressure, teams losing alignment, motivation fading as growth accelerated. Over time, I developed a structured way to read these dynamics. A framework for recognizing alignment and misalignment, trust and tension, energy and engagement that others often miss.This ability was shaped by years inside high-growth teams, refined through observation, interviews, and experience. What began as intuition has become a disciplined practice of perceiving the subtle cues that reveal how a team truly works.I don’t tell you which companies to back. I give you clarity on the team itself, so your conviction is grounded in insight, not intuition.
Turning Hidden Dynamics Into Clear Insights
"Real cases where subtle patterns of alignment, culture, and leadership determined whether companies scaled or stalled"
Case Study 1: When Founders Pull in Different Directions
At Company A, surface-level success masked deep fractures. Founders, management, and employees were no longer aligned on priorities or ways of working. This misalignment drained energy: sales momentum slowed, motivation slipped, and employees became reluctant to contribute. With a funding round on the horizon, the team’s lack of cohesion became the single biggest risk to execution, a dynamic no pitch deck could show.Insight: When founders and employees operate from different realities, growth stalls not because of the product, but because of the people meant to drive it.
Case Study 2: Leadership Vacuum, Culture Collapse
In another company, the cultural and structural cracks ran deep. Management had grown disconnected, ignoring feedback and failing to provide direction. Without leadership, employees defaulted to working in silos, doing “whatever they wanted.” Over time, trust eroded, accountability vanished, and the company lost its ability to execute as one unit. Leadership’s refusal to adapt sealed its fate, and the business ultimately shut down.Insight: A culture without leadership doesn’t drift, it decays. Without accountability and trust, scaling becomes impossible.
Case Study 3: Scaling Without Alignment
One client grew from 30 to 130 employees in under a year, hiring aggressively to meet investor expectations. Beneath the excitement, cracks appeared: cultural misfits, rising friction, and early signs of disengagement. Unlike many teams, the founders had the resilience to confront these issues. They addressed misalignment head-on, stabilized the culture, and turned a looming risk into an advantage. The company continued to grow, proof that scaling success depends as much on cultural alignment as on capital.Insight: Hypergrowth amplifies everything: strengths, cracks, and misfits. Without cultural alignment, speed becomes fragility.
Imprint
17 Insights
Brand of Arkona Services UG (limited liability)Managing Director: Yannick Domke
Address: Fürstenberger Straße 1, 10435 Berlin, Germany