startup-design
Design, validate, and plan a startup from scratch. Covers market research, competitive analysis, business model, brand identity, product definition, financial projections, and validation experiments. Trigger when the user has a startup idea to explore, wants to validate a business concept, needs a business plan or lean canvas, asks for market sizing or competitive landscape, wants brand positioning or go-to-market strategy, or says anything like "I have an idea for..." or "is this idea worth pursuing". Also handles resuming from a previous checkpoint.
npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
What it does
The skill guides the AI through an 8-phase process (plus a pre-flight check and a customer discovery gate) to take a startup idea from concept to validated design. It yields a complete set of markdown documents organized by domain and includes a progress tracker so work persists across sessions. It supports resuming from the last completed checkpoint if interrupted.
How it works
- Runs in sequential phases: PRE-FLIGHT → INTAKE → BRAINSTORM → RESEARCH → [Research Gate] → CUSTOMER DISCOVERY → [Interview Gate] → STRATEGY → BRAND → PRODUCT → FINANCIAL → VALIDATION. It can resume from the last completed phase if a PROGRESS.md exists.
- Has a Full Mode (default) executing all phases in order, and a Fast Track Mode with a compressed subset of phases for quick validation.
- In Fast Track, it runs: 0.5, 1, 2, 3 (waves limited), 3.5 gate, 3.7 interviews with constraints, 4 (Lean Canvas), skip Brand/Product, 7 (revenue model only), 8 (top 3 experiments) and then records a go/no-go signal.
- Outputs are saved to a project-specific directory structure as markdown files per phase (e.g., intake, discovery, strategy, etc.) and a PROGRESS.md tracking phase completion.
- Language is English by default; outputs adapt to the user language if requested.
When to use it
Triggered when a user has a startup idea to explore, wants validation, needs a business plan or lean canvas, asks for market sizing or competitive landscape, asks for brand/go-to-market strategy, or mentions resuming from a checkpoint.
What it can touch
- Creates and updates files in a structured project directory (e.g.,
{project-name}/00-intake/brief.md,{project-name}/01-discovery/market-analysis.md, etc.). - Uses agent templates and reference materials for waves, research principles, and synthesis outputs.
Caveats
- Requires a project directory and progress tracking file to resume from checkpoints.
- Fast Track mode reduces depth and number of outputs; may deliver a go/no-go signal with less evidence than Full Mode.
- Outputs and structure rely on the referenced phase definitions and output file names; deviations are not described here.
# Startup Design A structured, multi-phase skill that takes a startup idea from raw concept to validated design. It produces a complete set of markdown documents organized by domain, with built-in progress tracking so work survives session interruptions. ## How It Works The process has 8 numbered phases executed sequentially, plus a Pre-Flight Check (Phase 0.5) and a Customer Discovery gate (Phase 3.7). Each phase produces output files and updates the progress tracker. If a session is interrupted, resume from the last completed checkpoint. ``` PRE-FLIGHT → INTAKE → BRAINSTORM → RESEARCH → [Research Gate] → CUSTOMER DISCOVERY → [Interview Gate] → STRATEGY → BRAND → PRODUCT → FINANCIAL → VALIDATION ``` ### Modes **Full Mode (default):** Execute all phases in order, including Pre-Flight and Customer Discovery. Best for thoroughly designing a startup from scratch. **Fast Track Mode:** When the user says they want a "quick validation," "rapid assessment," or similar, or when time/budget is clearly limited, run a compressed version: 1. Phase 0.5 (Pre-Flight Check) — always run, takes 5 minutes 2. Phase 1 (Intake) — shortened to 1 round of questions; capture any prior customer conversatio
- How It Works
- Modes
- Language
- Phase 0: Resume Check
- Phase 0.5: Pre-Flight Check
- Phase 1: Intake Interview
- Output
- Phase 2: Brainstorm
- Process
- Phase 2.5: Research Depth Assessment
- Phase 3: Market Research
- Environment Detection
- Web Search Availability
- Research Principles
What does the startup-design skill do?
Design, validate, and plan a startup from scratch. Covers market research, competitive analysis, business model, brand identity, product definition, financial projections, and validation experiments. Trigger when the user has a startup idea to explore, wants to validate a business concept, needs a business plan or lean canvas, asks for market sizing or competitive landscape, wants brand positioning or go-to-market strategy, or says anything like "I have an idea for..." or "is this idea worth pursuing". Also handles resuming from a previous checkpoint.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From ferdinandobons/startup-skill, a repository with 576 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.