Methodology v1.2

Scoring & Methodology

How YC Mode measures startup momentum, traffic viability, and operational growth efficiency.

Core Thesis: "Traffic shows who was seen. Attention quality shows who may win." A large audience does not guarantee product-market fit. High-intent, recurring commercial visitor streams are the leading indicator of long-term startup compounding.

The Attention Ranking Score (0-100)

The overall Attention Ranking score is a compound score representing five key sub-components of startup momentum. Each factor is calculated from verified traffic, engagement, and metadata channels.

30%

Traffic Quantity

Logarithmic scale mapping of total monthly visits. We estimate total reach, ensuring high-traffic startups score well while normalizing outliers using log base 10.

25%

Engagement Quality

Compound metrics measuring session quality: average visit duration (s), pages browsed per visit, and low bounce rates (penalizing high immediate exit rates).

20%

Commercial Intent

Measures high-value traffic acquisition via organic search share, keyword CPC levels, and overall density of active search queries.

15%

User Loyalty

Habit and branded demand proxies, calculated from direct traffic share combined with returning visitor trends (duration and repeat visits).

10%

Growth Efficiency

Growth velocity relative to overhead. High traffic momentum driven by a small team increases this metric, rewarding operational efficiency.

Data Quality & Confidence Score

Since different startups have varying levels of public footprints, every score is accompanied by a **Data Confidence Level** and **Coverage Metric**:

High Confidence (75%-100%): Verified traffic profiles from TrafficLens or Similarweb data points containing active search keyword lists and channel breakdowns.
Medium Confidence (40%-74%): Baseline traffic estimations derived from sector mappings, WHOIS domain ages, and cohort averages.
Low Confidence (0%-39%): Highly estimated placeholder parameters with low available digital signals.