Who We Are

Proving Ground is a performance infrastructure for early-stage technical teams.

We exist because early decisions fail in a predictable way: strong storytellers and strong operators look identical before capital, customers, and incentives force the truth out. So the market relies on narrative, pedigree, and proxies, and repeats the same mistakes.

Proving Ground creates short, high-constraint environments that make real execution visible early. We observe how teams actually behave under pressure, how judgment forms, adapts, or collapses, and what happens when reality is still cheap.

We do not accelerate, coach, select, or invest by default. We measure.

Founders are the instrument. Pressure is the method. Signal is the product.

Our work builds on a decade of experience operating at the intersection of startups and enterprises, including the pre-pandemic legacy of BrandGarage, where we helped global organizations such as Comcast NBCUniversal, L’Oréal, Novartis, HP, Lowe’s, Coca-Cola, and Capital One explore new product categories, partnerships, and growth models.

That work taught us a hard lesson: strategy sounds smart until execution is observable.

Today, Proving Ground sits upstream of accelerators, platforms, and investors. We surface execution and judgment before narrative and capital distort behavior, producing clean signal others cannot recreate later.

We don’t predict winners. We reduce systematic error by making early reality visible.

AI + Humans =
Endless Possibilities

What We Do

Proving Ground runs controlled, high-constraint execution environments to make early-stage execution and judgment visible.

We design short, real-world pressure tests that sit upstream of accelerators, platforms, and investors. Teams operate under identical constraints, timelines, and exposure, while we observe how they actually work: how they scope, decide, adapt, communicate, and respond when reality pushes back.

Our work is not about ideation, coaching, or building proofs of concept. It is about observation. We capture execution behavior, decision traces, and response to pressure at the moment when signal is still cheap and before capital, narrative, or incentives distort outcomes.

Each Proving Ground cycle produces concrete artifacts: execution traces, judge observations, behavioral patterns, and longitudinal signal that cannot be recreated later. These outputs help platforms, investors, and ecosystem partners see what is usually invisible in early-stage teams.

Proving Ground does not select winners or recommend outcomes. We provide measurement, not judgment. Others decide what to do with the signal.

What we do is simple by design: create the conditions where execution truth emerges early, then capture it cleanly.

How We Operate

Name: FutureProof Labs
Address: 517 York Street, San Francisco, California, 94110, US
Telephone: 415.577.7799

Execution Observation Cycles

We run short, high-constraint execution cycles designed to surface how early-stage technical teams actually work.

Teams operate under identical conditions, timelines, and exposure.

We observe real behavior: how scope is set, decisions are made, tradeoffs are handled, and reality is confronted under pressure.

This is not a workshop or a build exercise. It is a controlled environment for making execution visible while signal is still cheap.

Judgment & Decision Signal Capture

During each cycle, we capture execution traces, decision paths, and behavioral responses that are normally invisible at pitch time.

This includes how teams adapt when assumptions break, how they communicate under stress, and how conviction forms or collapses.

The output is clean, comparable signal that cannot be recreated later once capital, coaching, or incentives enter the system.

Pre-Decision Insight for Platforms & Investors

Proving Ground sits upstream of accelerators, platforms, and investors as a neutral measurement layer.

We do not select, rank, or recommend teams.

We provide structured observation and post-cycle synthesis so decision-makers can see early execution clearly, reduce false positives, and make better downstream calls with less reliance on narrative or pedigree.

About

Mark Evans

I’m Mark Evans, founder of Proving Ground.

My work has always focused on the same problem: how organizations make early decisions when reality is still unclear. Before Proving Ground, I led BrandGarage, where I worked with global companies including Comcast NBCUniversal, L’Oréal, Novartis, HP, Lowe’s, Coca-Cola, and Capital One at the intersection of startups and enterprise. That work consistently surfaced a hard truth: strategy and storytelling dominate early conversations because execution is invisible.

Proving Ground exists as a response to that failure mode.

Rather than advising, coaching, or selecting, I built Proving Ground as a neutral measurement layer that makes execution and judgment observable before capital, incentives, or narrative distort behavior.

We create the conditions where teams reveal how they actually work under pressure, then capture that signal cleanly.

I believe early judgment is observable, misjudgment is costly, and better instrumentation leads to better decisions. Proving Ground is the system I wish had existed earlier in my career, on both sides of the table.