The Compass
The Interconnected Forces
Every venture is shaped by a set of forces that move together. Read in isolation they mislead; read together they reveal the real trajectory.
04Published · 2025
The Venture Compass.
Closing the Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want To Be
Founders are not short on ambition, creativity or drive: they are short on clarity.
Michelle Duval, from the foreword
Foreword by Michelle Duval · Founder, Marlee
04 · A book by Mark Falzon & Mac Christopherson
The Venture Compass.
Closing the Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want To Be
Mark Falzon & Mac Christopherson
MAD Ventures Australia
From the foreword
Mark and Mac have written a book that honours the founder's journey. It gives founders something rare: a map that is both accurate and humane.
Michelle Duval
Founder, Marlee (formerly Fingerprint for Success) — from the foreword
From the author's note
How do you give a founder a map that reveals not only where they are, but where they could go?
The Venture Compass is a diagnostic framework distilled from decades inside ventures — building, scaling, advising, failing, and returning with sharper insight. It reveals the interconnected forces that shape every venture's trajectory.
Most founders don't fail for lack of effort. They lose their way because they cannot see the whole terrain at once — the gap between current reality and potential reality, and the specific forces keeping the two apart. The Compass makes that terrain visible.
Current reality.
Potential reality.
01What it is
A map that is both accurate and humane.
The Venture Compass gives founders a single, structured view of the forces that decide a venture's trajectory — and a disciplined way to read where they are strong, where they are exposed, and what to do next.
It is written for founders at every point on the road: those just beginning, those in the thick of scaling, and those navigating a complex period of change. Not another framework to admire, but an instrument to navigate by.
Inside the book
- —The interconnected forces that shape every venture's trajectory.
- —How to locate the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
- —A shared language that aligns founders, teams and investors.
- —How to move from diagnosis to clarity to decisive movement.
02The structure
Twenty-three chapters, four parts.
From orientation, through the Compass itself, to applying it — and what lies beyond the book.
Part I
Orientation
- Why founders lose their way
- Clarity before strategy
- Reading the whole terrain
Part II
The Compass
- The interconnected forces, quadrant by quadrant
- Strengths, exposures and blind spots
- Current reality vs potential reality
Part III
Applying the Compass
- From diagnosis to decision
- Aligning founders, teams and investors
- Clarity that leads to movement
Part IV
Beyond the Book
- The Compass inside the Mastermind
- Living tools that keep evolving
- The road from here
Closing the gap · Between where you are and where you want to be
03A few of the ideas inside
A few of the ideas inside.
A diagnostic instrument rather than a theory. A handful of the ideas it puts in a founder's hands.
Orientation
The Gap
The distance between current reality and potential reality — and the specific forces holding the two apart. Naming the gap is the first move.
The Compass
Current vs Potential Reality
Where you are, and where you could be. The Compass holds both in view so decisions are made against potential, not just present circumstance.
Applying
A Shared Language
A common vocabulary that aligns founders, teams and investors — so a hard conversation becomes a structural one instead of a personal one.
Applying
Clarity That Leads to Movement
The Compass is not designed to overwhelm. It is designed to illuminate — to turn diagnosis into clear, decisive movement.
Beyond the Book
Inside the Mastermind
How the Compass becomes a living instrument inside the VC Mastermind — evolving as the founder, and the venture, evolve.
04Use the Compass yourself
Run your own Compass assessment.
The book gives you the framework; the platform lets you apply it. The Venture Compass tools are hosted online and continually updated, so you always work from the latest version.
Start with the Free Assessment to see where your venture is stable and where it's exposed, then move to the Full Compass Report for the complete picture across every force.
Companion resource
theventurecompass.comTools evolve and platforms improve — the link always points to the most current version of the Compass.
05On Mark, and the thinking behind the book
What founders and leaders say.
About the author
Mark Falzon.
Mark Falzon has spent 45+ years building, scaling and selling companies — six of them onto the BRW Fast 100 — and now mentors founders through MAD Ventures and the VC Mastermind.
The Venture Compass, written with MAD co-lead Mac Christopherson, is the diagnostic at the centre of that work: the instrument Mark reaches for when a founder needs to see the whole terrain at once.
Published · 2025
Read The Venture Compass.
The map founders reach for when ambition is high and clarity is the thing that's missing.
ISBN 978-0-6457675-5-1 · Published by MAD Ventures Australia