Claude Skills Founder

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Startup strategy from your terminal. Not another dev tool.

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<a href="#skills"><strong>Skills</strong></a> · <a href="#install"><strong>Install</strong></a> · <a href="#usage"><strong>Usage</strong></a> · <a href="#examples"><strong>Examples</strong></a> · <a href="#philosophy"><strong>Philosophy</strong></a> · <a href="#contributing"><strong>Contributing</strong></a>

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<a href="./LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=6172f3" alt="MIT License" /></a> <a href="#skills"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/skills-14-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=8b5cf6" alt="14 Skills" /></a> <a href="https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Claude_Code-compatible-blue?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=d4a574" alt="Claude Code" /></a> <a href="https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder/stargazers"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/emotixco/claude-skills-founder?style=flat-square&labelColor=18181b&color=6172f3" alt="GitHub Stars" /></a> <a href="https://www.skillsdirectory.com/skills/emotixco-validate-idea"><img src="https://www.skillsdirectory.com/api/skills/emotixco-validate-idea/badge" alt="Security grade A on Skills Directory" /></a>

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[!NOTE] Most Claude Code skill packs are developer tools: code review, git workflows, security audits. This one is for the founder sitting in a repo at 2am, trying to figure out if their idea is worth building.

We built these at Emotix while running our own startup. They encode the frameworks, questions, and patterns we wish we had on day one.

See it work before you install anything. examples/ holds five ideas run end to end, with every file the runs produced and nothing edited, including the one the skills told us to kill. evals/ measures the skills against plain Claude and publishes where they make no difference.

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Skills

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Validation and research

Command	What it does
/validate-idea	Stress-test with 7-dimension scorecard
/product-brief	Structured brief from one sentence
/competitor-matrix	Feature comparison + positioning gaps
/persona-gen	3 personas with priority matrix
/user-interviews	Mom Test script + analysis framework

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Strategy and growth

Command	What it does
/mvp-scope	Ruthless feature triage
/pricing-strategy	Tiers, unit economics, psychology
/go-to-market	Pre-launch to 90-day growth plan
/landing-page	Conversion copy, section by section
/email-sequence	Onboarding emails, ready to send

</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2">

Fundraising and metrics

Command	What it does
/pitch-deck	12-slide outline with per-slide content
/fundraise-prep	Readiness assessment + investor targeting + 12-week timeline
/metrics-dashboard	The 5 metrics that actually matter at your stage
/status	Where the company stands, read back from the founder/ folder

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Every skill takes plain-language input and returns scorecards, tables, and checklists you can act on.

Skills that build on each other

Each skill saves its output to a founder/ folder in your project and reads what earlier skills saved. Run /founder:competitor-matrix once, and /founder:pricing-strategy and /founder:pitch-deck reuse its sourced competitor prices instead of starting over.

founder/
├── facts.md               # what you told the skills: stage, metrics, team, the raise
├── validate-idea.md
├── competitor-matrix.md
├── pricing-strategy.md
└── ...

Commit the folder to keep a history of how your thinking changed, or add it to .gitignore to keep it private.

Facts about the outside world, such as competitor prices, funding rounds, market sizes, and benchmarks, come with a source link. When a skill can't find one, it says "Estimate" or "Not found" instead of guessing. Your own metrics, customer quotes, and testimonials are never invented: missing ones show up as [placeholders] for you to fill in.

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Install

<details open> <summary><strong>Option 1: plugin</strong> (recommended)</summary> <br />

Inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add emotixco/claude-skills-founder
/plugin install founder@emotix

Skills become available as /founder:validate-idea, /founder:pricing-strategy, and so on. Update later with /plugin marketplace update emotix. The skill descriptions add about 1,100 tokens to each session. A skill's full instructions load only when you run it.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>Option 2: clone</strong> (update with git pull)</summary> <br />

git clone https://github.com/emotixco/claude-skills-founder.git ~/.claude/skills/founder

Claude Code loads the folder as a plugin on the next session, with the same /founder: names. To update:

git -C ~/.claude/skills/founder pull

</details> <details> <summary><strong>Upgrading from v1</strong></summary> <br />

v1 installed flat files into .claude/commands/founder/. Delete that folder (or the symlink, if you used the v1 symlink option) before installing v2, or you will see every skill twice. It is either ~/.claude/commands/founder or .claude/commands/founder inside the project where you installed it.

</details> <br />

Usage

Open Claude Code and type any skill with your context:

> /founder:validate-idea An AI tool that analyzes pitch decks and gives investor-perspective feedback

> /founder:competitor-matrix Project management tools for solo founders (not teams)

> /founder:pricing-strategy B2B SaaS for restaurant inventory, targeting independent restaurants with 1-3 locations

> /founder:pitch-deck Pre-seed raise, $500K, AI competitor analysis for founders, 200 beta users, $2K MRR

Later, when the folder has something in it:

> /founder:status

Run a skill with no input and it asks for what it needs.

[!IMPORTANT] If an install step fails or a skill invents a number, that's a bug and we want to hear it. Open an issue with your claude --version and what you ran. A broken install is silent otherwise: people try it once and leave.

[!TIP] Be as specific as possible. Include your stage, metrics, constraints, and what you've already tried. Facts you give once are saved to founder/facts.md, so you don't have to repeat them.

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Examples

examples/ has five ideas run end to end, with every file the runs produced and nothing edited: a UK physiotherapy SaaS, an office coffee subscription in Baku, a solo developer's puzzle game, a restaurant inventory tool, and one idea the skills told us to kill. Each one lists what it cost and which of its cited links are dead. Read it before installing to see what you get.

evals/ tests the plugin against plain Claude with claude plugin eval, and evals/benchmark.md carries the scheduled re-runs, including the cases where the plugin loses. The honest summary, measured on 2026-10-07 across the 10 cases the suite held then: on Opus 5, 8 of those 10 scored the same with and without the plugin, because the model already keeps the placeholders and reads the saved files on its own. The exception is what happens when a new number contradicts a saved one: only the plugin updates founder/facts.md, so the next session doesn't inherit the stale figure. On Haiku 4.5 the plugin scored higher on 3 of the 10, the skills often need calling by name, and the shared rules file goes unread, so most of these rules never reach a Haiku session. Full numbers, including per-run cost, are in evals/README.md.

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What each skill produces

<details> <summary><strong>/validate-idea</strong> · the first skill you should run</summary> <br />

Scores your idea on 7 dimensions (problem severity, market size, willingness to pay, competition gap, distribution, timing, founder fit) and gives a verdict: build, pivot, or kill.

Includes 3 specific validation experiments you can run in under 2 weeks for under $200.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/product-brief</strong> · from idea to structured document</summary> <br />

Turns a one-sentence idea into a structured brief: problem statement, target audience with personas, value proposition, MVP features (exactly 5-7), success metrics with 90-day targets, risk assessment, and GTM snapshot.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/competitor-matrix</strong> · know your market</summary> <br />

Researches 5-8 competitors on the web and builds a feature comparison table, with a source link for every price and funding round. Finds positioning gaps no one is filling, ranks threats, and recommends a niche to own.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/persona-gen</strong> · real people, not demographics</summary> <br />

Creates 3 distinct personas with a day in the life, pain points written the way they would say them, current workarounds, and buying behavior. Includes a priority matrix showing which persona to build for first. Personas are marked as hypotheses until interviews confirm them.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/mvp-scope</strong> · cut ruthlessly</summary> <br />

Takes your feature wishlist and triages into Must Have / Should Have / Won't Have. Defines the critical user flow (signup to value in under 5 steps), recommends a tech stack, and estimates build time for a solo developer.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/pricing-strategy</strong> · beyond "just charge more"</summary> <br />

Evaluates 6 pricing models, designs 3 tiers with specific prices and features, checks unit economics, and anchors against competitor prices linked to their pricing pages. Includes anchoring, decoy, and annual framing, plus launch vs. scale pricing and grandfathering.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/go-to-market</strong> · week-by-week launch plan</summary> <br />

Pre-launch audience building, launch day platform strategy (Product Hunt, HN, Reddit, Twitter/X, LinkedIn), and 90-day post-launch growth with channel prioritization. Budget allocation for $0-$500/month.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/pitch-deck</strong> · investor-ready structure</summary> <br />

12-slide outline. Every slide gets a headline that states the takeaway, the content, a visual, and speaker notes. Missing numbers become placeholders, collected in a "numbers to find" list at the end. Plus appendix slides for Q&A.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/fundraise-prep</strong> · are you actually ready?</summary> <br />

Readiness scorecard, round sizing with recommended instrument (SAFE, note, or priced round), investor targeting with a 50-investor pipeline framework, materials checklist, and a 12-week fundraising timeline.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/landing-page</strong> · copy that converts</summary> <br />

Copy for every section: hero, problem, solution, how it works, social proof, pricing preview, FAQ, and final call to action, plus SEO metadata. Testimonials are left as placeholders that say what a strong quote would cover, because invented ones are false advertising.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/user-interviews</strong> · ask the right questions</summary> <br />

Interview script that follows The Mom Test: no leading questions, no hypotheticals. Includes screening criteria, problem exploration, solution exploration, and a reaction phase. Analysis framework for synthesizing 5-8 interviews.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/metrics-dashboard</strong> · five metrics, not fifty</summary> <br />

Defines exactly 5 metrics tailored to your stage (not 15 vanity metrics). Each has a definition, target, and specific action if below target. Weekly review template + investor-ready benchmarks.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/status</strong> · where things stand</summary> <br />

Reads the founder/ folder and answers "where are we" in one screen: what each skill decided and how long ago, the facts on record, what is still open, what has gone stale, and which skill to run next. It writes nothing, and it says nothing the folder does not say.

</details> <details> <summary><strong>/email-sequence</strong> · ready to send</summary> <br />

5-7 emails for onboarding or re-engagement. Complete copy: subject line with an A/B variant, preview text, a body under 150 words, and one call to action. Timing, segmentation, and targets from published benchmarks included.

</details> <br />

Philosophy

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Specific

"Post a Show HN on Tuesday at 9am ET", not "post on social media"

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Opinionated

"Kill this feature", not "consider deprioritizing"

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Sourced

Every competitor price and market number links to where it came from

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Brief

Every skill has a word limit. Brevity forces clarity.

</td> <td width="20%" align="center">

Structured

Scorecards, matrices, checklists. No walls of text.

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Contributing

Have a skill idea? Open an issue or submit a PR.

To add a new skill:

1. Create skills/<name>/SKILL.md
2. Add frontmatter with name, description, argument-hint, and allowed-tools
3. Add the "Before you start" block every skill uses: which founder/ files it reads, what it needs, and where it saves
4. Keep the expected output under 2000 words
5. Test it with 3 different inputs: claude --plugin-dir .
6. Run python3 .github/scripts/check_skills.py and claude plugin validate . before opening the PR. The first catches frontmatter the second accepts, such as an unquoted colon in a description
7. If the skill makes a promise (never invent X, always ask for Y), add a case under evals/ that checks it

Rules that apply to every skill, such as sourcing and writing style, live in shared/conventions.md. Change them there, not in each skill.

[!IMPORTANT] We're looking for skills that fill genuine gaps in the founder workflow, not developer tools repackaged with startup vocabulary.

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License

MIT. Use these however you want.

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Built by the <a href="https://emotix.co?utm_source=github&utm_medium=oss&utm_campaign=claude-skills-founder">Emotix</a> team

We build AI agents that turn startup ideas into research, analysis, and product briefs.

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<a href="https://emotix.co?utm_source=github&utm_medium=oss&utm_campaign=claude-skills-founder">Website</a> · <a href="https://github.com/emotixco">GitHub</a> · <a href="https://x.com/emotixco">Twitter</a>

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