“kind of like fake Traction in the sense that it's like we have 20K of Mr but actually those are like Consulting contracts and you've kind of like spun out a product but that product doesn't really have the same amount of traction and you're kind of like playing a little slight of hand here”

Watch for fake traction — consulting revenue dressed as product MRR

A common pattern Tringas rejects: founders reporting 20K MRR that turns out to be services contracts loosely attached to a product, or signed LOIs from customers who haven't actually paid. When validating traction — yours or anyone else's — separate paid product revenue from consulting and intent signals. The numbers must reflect the thing being sold.