Bulls, Bears & Grading: The Acquired IPO Scorecard
A five-part lens for judging any newly public company on its own terms.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 65%
Across their IPO and DPO coverage, the hosts apply a consistent five-part framework for evaluating a newly public tech company: lay out the bull case (fundamental strengths), the bear case (risks and weaknesses), extract a 'playbook' of repeatable tactics other founders could copy, weigh value creation against value capture (who really benefits and at what cost), and finally project five years forward to define what an A+ outcome and an F outcome would look like. This structured approach forces a balanced, falsifiable view of a company at a specific moment in time rather than a purely celebratory or purely skeptical narrative, and it creates a concrete benchmark that can be revisited later to check whether the thesis played out.
Origin
Developed by the Acquired hosts as a recurring structure applied episode after episode when covering major tech IPOs and DPOs.
Core principles
- 01Separate strengths (bulls) from weaknesses (bears) explicitly before forming a view
- 02Extract repeatable tactics ('playbook') that generalize beyond the single company
- 03Weigh who captures value versus who the product genuinely benefits (value creation vs. value capture)
- 04Set a concrete, falsifiable 5-year benchmark (A+ vs. F) to test the thesis later
How to run it
- 1
Build the bull case
List every fundamental strength: retention rates, growth rate, CAC/LTV ratio, network effects, brand strength, and competitive moat.
- 2
Build the bear case
List the risks and weaknesses: unprofitability, declining net dollar retention, credible competitors, and structural cost issues.
- 3
Extract the playbook
Identify the specific, repeatable tactics (e.g., feature-gated freemium, input-metric-driven onboarding) that other founders could apply elsewhere.
- 4
Weigh value creation vs. value capture
Assess who benefits from the product (customers, employees, society) versus who captures the economic value, and at what cost (e.g., always-on work culture).
- 5
Define the 5-year A+ and F outcomes
Project forward five years and articulate concretely what an A+ result (thesis fully realized) and an F result (thesis fails) would look like, to create a benchmark for later evaluation.
Pro tip Writing down the F case is as important as the A+ case — it forces honesty about real risks.
In the wild
After laying out Slack's bulls (retention, CAC/LTV, network effects) and bears (net losses, declining net dollar retention, Microsoft Teams competition), the hosts defined the A+ outcome as Slack both dominating chat and expanding into a broader productivity suite via new products and acquisitions, and the F outcome as displacement by Microsoft Teams or another competitor.
→ The exercise produced a clear, testable 5-year thesis for revisiting Slack's performance rather than a vague impression.
Common mistakes
Only presenting bulls or only bears
A one-sided analysis produces an unbalanced thesis that can't be honestly checked against reality later.
Skipping the value creation vs. value capture check
Ignoring who truly benefits (and at what societal cost) misses important externalities, like the always-on work culture Slack can create.
Is it for you?
Not ideal for
Quick, single-metric investment decisions where a full qualitative bull/bear/playbook analysis isn't practical.
From the transcript
“As you know, with these uh uh recent IPOs or DPOs, we ask the question five years from now, what will an A plus look…”
“Should we talk bulls first?”
From the episode
The Slack DPO