Most startup ideas fail. Find out if yours will before you waste 6 months building it.
Describe your idea. In 45 minutes, you get a brutal, research-backed GO/NO-GO verdict with 30+ structured files: market analysis, competitor battle cards, financial model, and a 30-day action plan. Free, open-source, runs inside Claude.
startup-design assessment
AI menu planner for restaurants
How founders validate today
Three ways to validate.
Two cost you months.
The average failed startup burns 12-18 months before the founder admits the idea was flawed. That's time you don't get back.
Strategy Consultant
Cost
$5K-$100K
Timeline
2-6 weeks
Deliverables
Slide deck + recommendations
Honesty
Depends who's paying
DIY Research
Cost
Free
Timeline
Weeks-months
Deliverables
Scattered notes + spreadsheets
Honesty
Confirmation bias
Startup Skill
Cost
Free
Timeline
45 minutes
Deliverables
30+ structured files
Honesty
Radical honesty protocol
Verdict
GO / NO-GO scorecard
Radical honesty
Built to kill bad ideas.
Every AI tool tells you your idea is great. This one tries to destroy it. If your idea survives 8 phases of structured attack, it might actually be worth building. If it doesn't, you just saved yourself months of wasted effort.
Your worst fears, confirmed or debunked
Actively searches for the most compelling reasons your idea will fail. You see them first, not buried in an appendix.
Every claim is tagged
Each data point is labeled Data, Estimate, or Assumption so you know exactly what to trust.
Most ideas don't pass
The scoring is tuned to reject, not approve. If your idea gets a GO verdict, it earned it.
A NO-GO saves you more than a GO
The most valuable thing this tool can tell you is "don't build this." That answer, 45 minutes in, is worth more than discovering it 6 months later.
8 phases.
From idea to validated strategy.
You describe your idea in one sentence. 45 minutes later, you have everything a consultant would charge $10K+ to produce.
01Intake
Founder-market fit assessment and constraint mapping before a single line of research begins.
02Brainstorm
Generates 5-8 variations of your idea to prevent fixation on a single approach.
03Market Research
11 parallel agents in 4 sequential waves. Real web data, cross-referenced. Every claim tagged [Data], [Estimate], or [Assumption].
04Strategy
Lean Canvas, competitive battle cards, Dunford positioning, and Value Proposition Canvas. Frameworks consultants use, automated.
05Brand
Mission, vision, and tone of voice — so you sound like you mean it.
06Product
MVP definition, feature prioritization, and JTBD analysis. Ship what matters, cut the rest.
07Financial
Revenue model, projections, and break-even analysis with tagged confidence levels.
08Validation
Experiments, risk matrix, go/no-go scorecard, and a 30-day action plan. The final verdict.
What you get
30+ structured deliverables.
Not a chat log.
Real files on your machine, not a chat log that disappears. Share them with co-founders, show them to investors, use them to make decisions.
Strategy
Lean Canvas
Complete business model canvas filled with research data, not guesses.
Competitive
Battle Cards
Per-competitor analysis with strengths, weaknesses, and positioning gaps.
Positioning
Positioning Doc
April Dunford framework: category, alternatives, unique attributes, value themes.
Market
Market Research Report
TAM/SAM/SOM, trends, customer segments. Every claim tagged with confidence level.
Financial
Revenue Model
Projections, break-even analysis, and pricing strategy with tagged assumptions.
Action
30-Day Action Plan
Week-by-week validation experiments, metrics to track, and go/no-go criteria.
45 minutes from now,
you'll know.
Either your idea has real potential, backed by 30+ files of research. Or it doesn't, and you just saved yourself months of building the wrong thing.
Built for
You can code anything, but should you?
Technical founders who can build fast but need market research, positioning, and business model validation before committing.
No advisors, no playbook
First-time founders who can't afford consultants. Structured frameworks replace the mentors you don't have yet.
Before you quit your job
Pre-revenue founders about to go all-in. Validate the idea before you burn through savings building something nobody wants.
Transparent by design
Not a black box
The code is on GitHub. The methodology is readable. The results are yours, in files you own.
No proprietary scores
No unexplainable outputs. Every conclusion traces back to labeled data points you can verify.
MIT licensed, no data collection
Your ideas stay on your machine. Nothing is sent anywhere. Fork it, modify it, make it yours.
Download for Cowork
Each skill is a separate .skill file. Upload it in Cowork via Upload skill.
Upload each .skill file in Cowork to get started.
Install on Claude Code
1. Add the plugin from marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add ferdinandobons/startup-skill 2. Install the plugin
claude plugin install startup@startup-skill 3. Run the skill with your idea
/startup:startup-design <your idea> Works with any Claude subscription. Requires Claude Code.