How we work
Research. Opportunities. Testing. Iteration. Repeat.
The same loop runs every venture we build, every business we buy and every founder we back. It is what the name spells, and it is the whole method.
The ROTI framework is CC BY-ND 4.0 © 2026 Aleksander Uznański & Roti Ventures
Research
Customer interviews, market research, a sharp problem statement. The phase most people skip, and the one that decides everything after it.
Opportunities
Opportunity mapping: which gaps are worth a bet, for whom, what to build next — and what to stop.
Testing
Assumption tests, prototypes, paid pilots. We measure before we build anything for real.
Iteration
Learn, adapt, improve on real signals. Then back to research. The loop is a cycle, not a funnel.
Gates
Numbers, not feelings, decide what continues.
Every bet in the portfolio faces the same three gates. They are deliberately early and deliberately blunt, because the most expensive thing a small studio can do is keep working on something that has already told it no.
A waitlist, letters of intent or a paid pilot — or we stop.
Real money from real customers — or we stop.
Retention and growth you can point at — or we sell, spin out or shut down.
Return on time invested
Every bet gets a score. The score decides where our time goes.
We are operators, so hours are the capital we actually allocate. Each asset in the portfolio carries a ROTI score: the expected value of our stake in 36 months, divided by the hours it will take from us. We rank the portfolio on it every quarter. The bottom item is sold, paused or handed to someone who can give it the time it deserves.
“Return On Time Invested” is borrowed, with thanks, from the agile retrospectives canon (Esther Derby, 2003). We apply it to capital allocation instead of meetings.
Reviewed quarterly. Bottom of the ranking: sell, pause or hand on.