founder-mode

name	founder-mode
description	Use when validating a startup hypothesis pre-PMF. Runs SCOUT → INTERROGATE → SYNTHESIZE → TEST cycles 3–5 times across 2–4 weeks until 12 graduation criteria are met. Mandatory Devil's Advocate after every INTERROGATE. Confidence scoring on 1–5 rubric with hard caps. Falsification-driven, not validation-driven.

Founder mode

You validate a hypothesis before you build. Mom Test interviews, community mining, mandatory Devil's Advocate, evidence-weighted confidence scoring.

Difference from PM mode: PM mode optimizes velocity after you know WHO and WHY. Founder mode discovers them through structured falsification. The 12 graduation criteria are the gate.

The cycle

Run 3–5 cycles, each 2–4 weeks. Pause for human review at every phase boundary.

SCOUT (30–60 min agent + human)

Dispatch market-scout. Parallel scans across Reddit, G2, Hacker News, ProductHunt, Crunchbase using the 7-signal framework. Output: SCOUT report with verbatim quotes, source URLs, contradictory signals (mandatory), new hypotheses.

Human pause: prioritize hypotheses, flag domain-specific gaps the agent missed.

INTERROGATE (2–4 hrs human + agent)

Dispatch interview-architect twice — once pre-interview to generate the protocol (10–15 questions traced to hypotheses), once post-interview to analyze transcripts (JTBD four forces, evidence weighting, false-positive flags).

Then dispatch devils-advocate — mandatory. DA-Lite cycles 1–2, DA-Full cycles 3+, DA-Final pre-graduation.

Human pause: review interviews + DA report. Decide which DA attacks are valid.

SYNTHESIZE (30–60 min agent)

Dispatch thesis-synthesizer. Updates THESIS.md with confidence scores (1–5 with hard caps), audits claims, appends Evolution Log entry, identifies weakest section.

Human pause: accept or challenge confidence scores. Conservative scoring is the default.

TEST (15–30 min)

Evaluate the 12 graduation criteria. Recommend CONTINUE / PIVOT / KILL / GRADUATE.

Human pause: decide.

The 12 graduation criteria

ALL twelve must be met. 11/12 = NOT READY.

[ ] Problem confidence ≥ 4
[ ] Pricing confidence ≥ 4
[ ] Purpose confidence ≥ 3
[ ] Market confidence ≥ 3
[ ] Wedge confidence ≥ 3
[ ] Competition confidence ≥ 3
[ ] Defensibility confidence ≥ 3
[ ] No invalidated P1 hypotheses
[ ] DA: no existential risks
[ ] ≥12 interviews across ≥3 segments (no segment > 40%)
[ ] ≥3 real commitments obtained
[ ] Confidence trajectory: stable or increasing over last 2 cycles

State files (7)

File	What
THESIS.md	7 sections (Purpose, Problem, Market, Wedge, Competition, Defensibility, Pricing) + Confidence Summary + Evolution Log
hypotheses.json	Active falsifiable claims, each with falsification_criteria (REQUIRED)
evidence.json	Tagged evidence: source, type, weight (1/2/3), direction, hypothesis IDs
cycles.json	Forge history, phase records, confidence snapshots, DA summaries
interviews.md	Structured summaries: JTBD forces, weighted evidence, commitment signals, false-positive flags
landscape.md	Competitor map (every competitor has "Why they might win"), Five Forces, community signals
progress.md	Dead Ends (read first by every agent), Cross-Cutting Patterns, Active Gotchas

What's different about Founder mode

• Falsification-driven, not validation-driven. You're trying to kill the thesis, not save it. Surviving 5 attacks means the hypothesis is actually strong.
• Behavioral evidence > stated intent. Weight 3 (past actions) > Weight 2 (mixed) > Weight 1 ("I would..."). Hard cap of 3 confidence on stated-intent-only evidence.
• Contradictory evidence is mandatory. No SCOUT pass is complete without it. Cherry-picking is the most-detected failure mode.
• DA after every INTERROGATE. Non-negotiable. The framework's discipline.
• Conservative scoring by default. When in doubt, lower the score.

Graduation handoff

When all 12 criteria are met, /forge:graduate hands off:

• Draft IDENTITY.md (WHO/JOB/NEVER from THESIS.md)
• Initial signals (validated hypotheses → PM releases.json current_cycle.signals with thesis_impact: "confirms")
• Feature priority seeds (high-confidence/high-pain hypotheses → features.json)
• Graduation Brief (top risks, open questions, pricing signals, moat evidence)

After handoff: switch to pm-mode.

What it doesn't do

• It doesn't tell you to ship. The human decides.
• It doesn't generate a product. It generates a validated thesis.
• It doesn't do customer interviews — you do those. The agent generates the protocol and analyzes the transcripts.