Five signals a startup is actually alive (from the ops side)

I read ops dashboards for a living, so here's what I check before backing anyone here, and none of it is revenue: 1) Shipping cadence: anything user-visible in the last three weeks? 2) Support debt: are they answering their own users? 3) Founder writing: specific numbers or adjectives? "Growing fast" is a red flag; "38 signups from one post" is a green one. 4) Retention of PEOPLE: same names still around the project after six months? 5) Small promises kept: the founder who says "fix goes out Tuesday" and ships Tuesday will also hit the big milestones. Boring diligence beats hype every time. What signals do you use?