cognitive-twin

name	cognitive-twin
description	Continuous business health monitoring across 13 business domains. Scores domain health, generates periodic digests, detects anomalies, simulates decisions, and provides early warning signals for problems.

Cognitive Twin Skill

Overview

The Cognitive Twin is the always-on business health monitor. It:

• Continuously tracks 13 business domains
• Calculates domain-specific health scores (0-100)
• Detects anomalies and trends across domains
• Generates periodic health digests
• Simulates decision outcomes
• Provides early warning signals for problems

Like having a "twin" who watches your business 24/7 and alerts you when something seems off.

Core Capabilities

1. The 13 Business Domains

FINANCIAL DOMAIN (25% of overall score)

Components:
- Revenue growth: Monthly growth rate, YoY comparison
- Profitability: Gross margin, net margin, unit economics
- Burn rate: Runway in months, cash position
- Customer LTV: Lifetime value per customer
- Churn: Monthly churn rate, trend direction
- Pricing power: Ability to raise prices without losing customers

Health Score Calculation:
- Revenue growing 10%+ MoM: +20 points
- Gross margin 60%+: +20 points
- Burn rate sustainable: +20 points
- LTV:CAC ratio 3+:1: +20 points
- Churn < 3%: +20 points

Example Score: 78/100
- Strong revenue (+20)
- Good margins (+18)
- 7-month runway (+15) ← Getting short
- Good LTV ratio (+20)
- Acceptable churn (+5)

Alerts trigger at:
- Runway dropping below 12 months
- Churn increasing 1%+ month-over-month
- Revenue growth dropping below 5%

CUSTOMER DOMAIN (20% of overall score)

Components:
- Customer satisfaction (NPS): Net Promoter Score, trend
- Customer acquisition cost: CAC, vs. industry benchmark
- Customer retention: Retention rate by cohort
- Customer diversity: Concentration risk (% from top 5 customers)
- Customer feedback: Support tickets, feature requests, sentiment
- Customer expansion: Revenue expansion from existing customers

Health Score Calculation:
- NPS 50+: +25 points
- CAC improving: +20 points
- Retention rate 90%+: +25 points
- No customer > 10% revenue: +15 points
- Positive feedback trend: +15 points

Example Score: 72/100
- NPS 45 (+20)
- CAC stable (+18)
- 85% retention (+20) ← Could be better
- Top customer = 12% (+10)
- Mixed feedback (+4)

Alerts trigger at:
- NPS dropping 5+ points
- CAC increasing without revenue increase
- Retention trending down
- Single customer > 20% revenue

PRODUCT DOMAIN (18% of overall score)

Components:
- Product-market fit: Usage frequency, feature adoption
- Roadmap execution: On-time delivery of planned features
- Bug/quality: Number of critical bugs, time to fix
- Performance: Page load time, uptime, reliability
- Feature parity: vs. competitors, what are you missing?
- User engagement: DAU/MAU ratio, feature usage depth

Health Score Calculation:
- 60%+ DAU/MAU ratio: +20 points
- Roadmap 90%+ on time: +20 points
- < 3 critical bugs: +20 points
- 99.5%+ uptime: +20 points
- Feature competitive: +20 points

Example Score: 68/100
- 50% DAU/MAU (+15) ← Could increase
- 70% on-time delivery (+14)
- 5 critical bugs (+10) ← Getting high
- 99.2% uptime (+16) ← Slight issue
- Missing 2 key features (+13)

Alerts trigger at:
- DAU/MAU dropping 5%+
- Uptime below 99%
- Critical bugs accumulating
- Major feature competitors have
- Roadmap delays exceeding 2 weeks

TEAM DOMAIN (15% of overall score)

Components:
- Headcount growth: Hiring pace, retention rate
- Team satisfaction: Employee engagement, satisfaction scores
- Key person dependency: Risk if someone leaves
- Team skill gaps: Missing expertise for roadmap
- Diversity & inclusion: Team composition representation
- Team productivity: Output per person, iteration speed

Health Score Calculation:
- Headcount growing on plan: +25 points
- Team satisfaction 7+/10: +25 points
- No person > 30% critical skills: +20 points
- Skill gaps being filled: +15 points
- Team diverse: +15 points

Example Score: 58/100
- Hiring on track (+25)
- Satisfaction 6.2/10 (+15) ← Getting low
- CEO/CTO key person risk (+0) ← Critical
- 3 skill gaps unfilled (+5) ← Problem
- Limited diversity (+8)

Alerts trigger at:
- Key person departure risk identified
- Team satisfaction dropping
- Hiring unable to keep pace
- Skill gaps growing

MARKET DOMAIN (10% of overall score)

Components:
- Market size: TAM, addressable market trends
- Market growth rate: Is market expanding or contracting?
- Competitive intensity: New entrants, consolidation
- Customer demand: Lead generation trends, sales pipeline
- Market timing: Are you ahead/behind market adoption curve?
- Regulatory environment: New regulations, restrictions

Health Score Calculation:
- Market growing 20%+: +25 points
- You growing faster than market: +25 points
- < 5 direct competitors: +20 points
- Strong customer demand signal: +20 points
- Regulatory tailwinds: +10 points

Example Score: 72/100
- Market growing 15% (+20)
- Growing faster (+25)
- 8 competitors (+10)
- Strong demand (+15) ← Good
- Neutral regulation (+2)

Alerts trigger at:
- Market growth slowing
- Competitive entrants increasing
- New unfavorable regulations
- Customer demand signals dropping

OPERATIONS DOMAIN (5% of overall score)

Components:
- Process efficiency: How fast can you execute?
- Cost control: Where is money going?
- Infrastructure: Technical debt, system reliability
- Compliance: Legal, regulatory, data handling
- Data management: Data quality, security, privacy

Health Score Calculation:
- Quarterly metrics within 10% of plan: +25 points
- No major compliance issues: +25 points
- Technical debt under control: +25 points
- No data breaches or incidents: +25 points

Example Score: 81/100
- Metrics tracking plan (+25)
- Clean compliance review (+20) ← Minor issue
- Some tech debt (+20)
- No incidents (+16)

ADDITIONAL DOMAINS (covered by composite scoring)

• Sales Domain (Lead generation, conversion rates, pipeline health)
• Marketing Domain (Brand awareness, lead quality, content performance)
• Partnership Domain (Strategic partners, partnership pipeline, co-marketing)
• Investor/Board Domain (Relationships, fundraising readiness, update cadence)
• Strategic Domain (Vision clarity, strategy execution, milestone achievement)
• Leadership Domain (Founder capability, leadership bench, decision-making)
• Culture Domain (Values alignment, retention, engagement, onboarding)

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2. Periodic Health Digests

Daily Quick Check (5 minutes)

AUTOMATED - Sent every morning

Today's Health: 74/100 (↓1 point from yesterday)

RED FLAGS (Needs attention):
❌ Revenue tracking 5% below forecast (target: $42k, actual: $40k)
⚠️ 3 new critical bugs this week (normal: 1-2)

GREEN FLAGS (Good signs):
✅ Customer satisfaction up to 7.2/10
✅ Runway stable at 8.5 months

KEY METRICS AT A GLANCE:
- Monthly recurring revenue: $45,000 (↑12% MoM)
- Team size: 8 people (on track for 10 by Q2)
- NPS: 48 (good trend: ↑3 this month)
- Churn rate: 2.1% (stable)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Debug the 3 critical bugs this week. Don't let tech debt accumulate.
Everything else looks normal.

Weekly Digest (30 minutes)

SENT: Every Sunday evening

HEALTH SCORE: 74/100 (↑2 from last week)

DOMAIN BREAKDOWN:
Financial: 78/100 (↑1)
- Revenue: On track
- Burn: Stable
- Profitability: Improving

Customer: 72/100 (stable)
- NPS: 48 (good)
- Churn: 2.1% (acceptable)
- CAC: Improving

Product: 68/100 (↓2)
- DAU/MAU: Slightly down
- Bugs: 3 critical
- Uptime: Good

Team: 58/100 (stable)
- Hiring: On track
- Satisfaction: Slightly low
- Key person risk: CEO dependent

Market: 72/100 (stable)
- Market growing well
- Competition increasing
- Demand strong

ANOMALIES DETECTED:
1. Product domain dip (bugs + engagement)
   - Action: Prioritize bug fixes this week
   - Impact: Will recover if fixed quickly

2. Team satisfaction low (6.2/10)
   - Action: One-on-ones this week to understand why
   - Impact: Could lead to turnover if not addressed

WHAT'S WORKING WELL:
- Revenue growth trajectory
- Customer retention strong
- Market conditions favorable

WHAT NEEDS ATTENTION:
- Product quality (bugs)
- Team morale
- DAU/MAU slightly down

STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS:
- You're in a strong position financially
- Don't let team satisfaction degrade
- Bug accumulation is concerning - address this week

NEXT WEEK FOCUS:
1. Fix 3 critical bugs
2. Check in with team about satisfaction
3. Continue revenue momentum

Monthly Strategic Review (2 hours)

SENT: First day of each month

MONTHLY HEALTH REPORT - November 2025
Generated: 2025-11-28

OVERALL HEALTH: 74/100
Month-over-month change: ↑3 points

FINANCIAL HEALTH: 78/100
- MRR: $45,000 (↑12% MoM)
- ARR: $540,000 (↑12% YoY)
- Gross Margin: 72% (industry avg: 70%)
- Churn Rate: 2.1% (industry avg: 5%)
- Runway: 8.5 months (target: 12+ months)
- Customer LTV: $2,400
- LTV:CAC Ratio: 2.8:1 (healthy target: 3:1)

Recommendation: You're financially healthy. Prioritize
customer acquisition to extend runway before Series A.

CUSTOMER HEALTH: 72/100
- NPS: 48 (trend: ↑3 from September)
- Retention: 85% (monthly, 95% annual)
- Customer Concentration: Top 5 = 35% of revenue
- Customer Expansion: 18% expansion from existing
- Support Satisfaction: 8.2/10
- Feature Requests: 42 (top 3 features identified)

Recommendation: You have strong customer loyalty.
Work on features customers are requesting (prioritize top 3).

PRODUCT HEALTH: 68/100
- DAU/MAU: 50% (trend: ↓3% from last month)
- Uptime: 99.2% (target: 99.5%)
- Page Load Time: 2.1s (target: <2.0s)
- Critical Bugs: 5 open
- Roadmap On-Time: 70% (target: 90%)
- Feature Parity vs. Competitors: 85%

Recommendation: This is the area to focus. Improve product
quality and engagement. Consider engineering hire to reduce
tech debt.

TEAM HEALTH: 58/100
- Current: 8 people
- Planned Growth: 10 by Q2 (on track)
- Satisfaction: 6.2/10 (trend: ↓0.8 from last month)
- Retention: 100% (no departures)
- Key Person Risk: CEO/CTO both critical
- Skill Gaps: 3 (backend engineer, designer, operations)

Recommendation: Team satisfaction is declining.
Investigate in 1-on-1s. Key person risk is concerning—
begin identifying successors for CEO/CTO roles.

MARKET HEALTH: 72/100
- TAM: $12B (growing 15% annually)
- Your TAM Penetration: 0.04%
- Competitors: 8 (major), 15+ (smaller)
- Market Growth: 15% (your growth: 12% MoM = strong)
- New Entrants: 2 raised Series B this month
- Regulatory: No changes

Recommendation: Market is healthy. Competitive intensity
increasing—accelerate your differentiation and brand building.

ANOMALY ANALYSIS:

CONCERN #1: Declining Product Engagement
- DAU/MAU down 3% (first decline in 6 months)
- Root cause hypothesis: New feature rollout created friction
- Action: Analyze user flows, identify friction points
- Timeline: Diagnose this week, fix next 2 weeks
- Impact if ignored: Could lead to churn acceleration

CONCERN #2: Team Satisfaction Declining
- Score dropped 0.8 points (first decline in 3 months)
- Root cause hypothesis: Heavy workload from new features?
- Action: 1-on-1s with all team members this week
- Timeline: Address concerns by end of month
- Impact if ignored: Risk losing team members

CONCERN #3: Key Person Risk
- If CEO or CTO leaves: Business at severe risk
- No succession plan identified
- Action: Document processes, identify backup
- Timeline: 30-day plan by end of December
- Impact if ignored: Business interruption if departure

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WHAT'S WORKING WELL:
✅ Revenue growth strong and consistent
✅ Customer retention excellent for early stage
✅ Market timing favorable
✅ No team departures (retention 100%)

WHAT NEEDS FOCUS:
⚠️ Product quality and engagement (declining)
⚠️ Team satisfaction (declining trend)
⚠️ Key person dependency (unmitigated)
⚠️ Runway extension (need 12+ months soon)

STRATEGIC DECISIONS NEEDED THIS MONTH:
1. Engineering hire decision: Yes or No? (Impacts runway but improves product)
2. Feature prioritization: Which customer requests to tackle first?
3. Competitive response: 2 new competitors entered—differentiation strategy?

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS - NEXT 30 DAYS:

PRIORITY 1 (Do this week):
□ Diagnose product engagement decline (3 hours)
□ 1-on-1s with team to address satisfaction (8 hours)
□ Identify succession plans for CEO/CTO (2 hours)

PRIORITY 2 (Do this month):
□ Fix technical debt to improve uptime/performance (20 hours)
□ Implement customer feature requests (top 3) (40 hours)
□ Engineering hire: Post role, begin interviews (10 hours)
□ Competitive differentiation strategy (8 hours)

PRIORITY 3 (Planning):
□ Series A readiness assessment (for fundraising in 6 months)
□ Board/investor update deck (if applicable)
□ Annual strategy refresh (for Q1 planning)

FINANCIAL FORECAST - Q1 2026:
- Projected MRR: $48,500 (↑7.7% from November)
- Projected Churn: 2.3% (slight increase expected)
- Projected Runway: 7.2 months (declining due to hiring)
- Break-even timeline: 14 months (without changes)

CONFIDENCE LEVEL: HIGH (based on consistent metrics)

3. Anomaly Detection

Real-time anomaly flags:

ANOMALIES DETECTED IN LAST 7 DAYS:

FINANCIAL ANOMALIES:
1. CRITICAL: Daily active users down 15%
   - Normal range: ±5%
   - Severity: Could impact monthly revenue forecast
   - Hypothesis: New feature rollout or bug?
   - Action: Investigate user behavior changes immediately
   - Investigation: Check analytics for drop-off point

2. ALERT: Revenue forecast down 8% vs. plan
   - Plan: $42,000
   - Actual: $38,700 (on pace for month)
   - Severity: Moderate, still acceptable range
   - Hypothesis: Sales cycle extension?
   - Action: Review sales pipeline for stalled deals

TEAM ANOMALIES:
1. WARNING: Team satisfaction score dropped 1.2 points
   - Normal month-to-month: ±0.3
   - Severity: Potential warning sign
   - Hypothesis: High workload? Toxic situation? Burnout?
   - Action: 1-on-1s to diagnose
   - Monitor: Weekly check-ins for next month

PRODUCT ANOMALIES:
1. CRITICAL: 5 critical bugs reported this week
   - Normal: 1-2 per week
   - Severity: Quality is degrading
   - Hypothesis: Recent feature rollout introduced issues
   - Action: Pause feature releases, focus on stabilization
   - Timeline: Target resolution by end of week

2. ALERT: Page load time increased to 2.1s
   - Target: <2.0s
   - Normal range: 1.8-2.0s
   - Severity: Minor, but trending wrong direction
   - Hypothesis: Increased database queries from new features
   - Action: Database optimization
   - Monitor: Daily metrics for next week

MARKET ANOMALIES:
None detected - market conditions stable

4. Decision Simulation

Simulate decisions before executing:

DECISION: Should we hire an engineering manager?

SCENARIO MODELING:

BASE CASE (No hire):
- Current burn: $120k/month
- Runway: 8.5 months
- Team productivity: 8 people delivering features
- Tech debt: Accumulating slowly
- Product velocity: Steady but slowing

IF WE HIRE ENGINEERING MANAGER:
- Burn: +$180k/year salary = $135k/month (+12.5%)
- Runway: 7.2 months (↓1.3 months)
- Team productivity: +15-20% (less context switching)
- Tech debt: Managed proactively (reduced)
- Product velocity: +10% expected

WHAT'S THE IMPACT ON OTHER DOMAINS?

Financial Domain:
- Runway drops from 8.5 to 7.2 months
- Product velocity improves → higher revenue potential
- Net: Trade short-term runway for long-term capability

Product Domain:
- Quality improves (dedicated focus on tech debt)
- Velocity stays steady or improves
- Bug rate could decrease
- Impact: Product domain health +5-10 points

Team Domain:
- Better management = improved satisfaction
- Clear growth path = retention
- Team health: +3-5 points

OVERALL IMPACT:
Health score improvement: +2-4 points
Runway cost: -1.3 months
Verdict: Marginal improvement, but feasible

RECOMMENDATION:
HIRE if:
- You want to prioritize product quality and team health
- You can close Series A in next 9 months (extend runway)
- You want to accelerate feature velocity

DON'T HIRE if:
- Runway is critical concern
- Team is small enough for CEO/CTO to manage
- Focus is on revenue growth (not quality)

DECISION FRAMEWORK:
- If Series A likely: HIRE
- If bootstrapping: WAIT
- If runway < 6 months: WAIT

YOUR SITUATION: Series A in 6-9 months likely
RECOMMENDATION: HIRE now to improve metrics for investors

5. Trend Analysis & Alerts

Predictive alerts:

TREND ANALYSIS - 90 DAY OUTLOOK

POSITIVE TRENDS:
✅ Revenue growing 12% MoM consistently
   - Projection: $60k MRR by end of Q1
   - Confidence: HIGH (6 months consistent data)

✅ Customer satisfaction improving
   - NPS trend: 45 → 48 (↑0.5 pts/month)
   - Projection: 52 by end of Q1
   - Confidence: MEDIUM (recent improvement)

NEGATIVE TRENDS:
⚠️ Runway declining with hiring plans
   - Current: 8.5 months
   - Projection: 6.8 months by end of Q1
   - Action needed: Plan Series A or cut spending

⚠️ Product engagement declining
   - DAU/MAU: 55% → 50% (↓1.7% per month)
   - Projection: 45% by end of Q1 if unchanged
   - Action needed: Investigate and fix urgently

⚠️ Team satisfaction drifting down
   - Score: 6.8 → 6.2 (↓0.2 per month)
   - Projection: 5.6 by end of Q1 (unacceptable)
   - Action needed: Address this month

INFLECTION POINTS TO WATCH:
1. If churn increases 1%+ → Revenue growth stops → Crisis
   Current: 2.1%, Safe until: 3.1%
   Time to inflection: ~3-4 months if trend continues

2. If DAU/MAU drops below 40% → Product-market fit questioned
   Current: 50%, Safe until: 40%
   Time to inflection: ~2-3 months if trend continues

3. If runway drops below 6 months → Must fundraise or cut
   Current: 8.5 months, Safe until: 6 months
   Time to inflection: ~3-4 months with current burn

Command Reference

Monitoring & Digests

Today's health check
- Automatic daily digest
- 5-minute summary
- Red flags, green flags, action items

Weekly digest
- Comprehensive domain analysis
- Anomalies and trends
- Recommended focus areas

Monthly strategic review
- In-depth analysis of all 13 domains
- Anomaly investigation
- Decision frameworks
- 90-day forecast

Domain deep dive
- Focus on one domain (e.g., Financial)
- Detailed metrics and trends
- Benchmarking vs. industry
- Specific recommendations

Simulations & Scenarios

Simulate decision
- Decision: what you're considering
- Timeframe: 3 months? 12 months?
- Output: Impact on all domains + health score

What-if analysis
- Variable: what's changing (e.g., "lose top customer")
- Impact: how does it cascade through business?
- Mitigation: what would you do?
- Output: Scenario modeling with probabilities

Stress test business
- Scenario: economic downturn, key person leaves, etc.
- Severity: severe, moderate, mild
- Output: Survival analysis + recovery options

Alerts & Monitoring

Set alert threshold
- Domain: which domain to monitor
- Metric: specific metric
- Threshold: trigger point
- Action: what to do if triggered

Anomaly report
- Timeframe: last week, last month, all-time
- Severity: all, warnings only, critical only
- Output: List of anomalies with analysis

Trend analysis
- Domain: which domain
- Timeframe: 30, 60, 90 days
- Output: Trend lines, inflection points, projections

Triggers & Keywords

User says any of:

• "How's my business doing?"
• "Health check"
• "Monthly digest"
• "What's wrong?"
• "Any anomalies?"
• "What if we..."
• "Simulate hiring..."
• "Trend analysis for..."
• "Domain health for..."
• "Should we..."
• "When will we..."
• "Is everything OK?"

Integration Points

Cognitive Twin works with:

• Founder OS - Business data, metrics, vault
• AI Phill - Strategic implications of changes
• Analytics systems - Metrics ingestion
• CRM systems - Customer data
• Financial systems - Revenue, expense data
• Team/HR systems - Team metrics
• Product analytics - User behavior data
• Claude Opus - Extended Thinking for deep analysis

Version 1 Scope

What we deliver:

• 13-domain health scoring system
• Daily, weekly, monthly digest templates
• Real-time anomaly detection
• Decision simulation framework
• Trend analysis and forecasting
• Alert trigger configuration

What we don't deliver (Post-V1):

• Real-time API integrations (Stripe, Slack, etc.)
• Automated data ingestion from all systems
• Machine learning for anomaly detection
• Predictive modeling (ML)
• Automated decision recommendations

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Core Philosophy: Your business is a complex system. Monitor all 13 domains regularly. Anomalies are warnings. Simulate decisions before executing. The Cognitive Twin is your always-on safety system.