# Startup Design

Design, validate, and plan a startup from scratch.

- Repository: https://github.com/ferdinandobons/startup-skill (1247 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-07-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add ferdinandobons/startup-skill --skill startup-design -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add ferdinandobons/startup-skill`

## Description

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.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# 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 conversations
3. Phase 2 (Brainstorm), 3 variations instead of 5-8
4. Phase 3 (Research), Wave 1 + Wave 2 only (skip customer voice and distribution deep-dives)
5. Phase 3.5 (Research Gate), go/no-go checkpoint
6. Phase 3.7 (Customer Discovery), if founder has 5+ prior conversations, document them; if not, run at least 3 interviews before proceeding
7. Phase 4 (Strategy), Lean Canvas only
8. Skip Phase 5 (Brand) and Phase 6 (Product)
9. Phase 7 (Financial), Revenue model only, Stage A (assumption-based), no full projections
10. Phase 8 (Validation), Scorecard + top 3 experiments only

The rest: https://github.com/ferdinandobons/startup-skill/blob/HEAD/startup-design/SKILL.md