| name | fa-product-process |
| description | Provides the money-gated lifecycle and coordination playbook for taking a consumer one-off / in-app-purchase product from idea to validated bet through launch and live-ops. Use it to classify a product request, run each of the 10 stages as fan-out -> adversarial review -> synthesis against one shared unit-economics model, and apply net-of-fee money gates with explicit loop-backs. Use when coordinating product discovery, monetization design, validation, soft-launch, or live-ops for non-SaaS consumer software. |
| license | MIT |
Gaia Product Process
Scope and when to use
Use this skill to route a consumer-product bet through Gaia's product-discovery
team. Scope is one-off + IAP/IAG monetization; B2B seat-based SaaS is out of
scope and auto-renewing passes are red-lined unless an explicit in-scope decision
is recorded.
Use when:
- a consumer-product goal needs framing, discovery, or monetization design
- a stage needs fan-out, review, and a money gate before advancing
- a gate fails and the work must loop back to the right upstream stage
Do not use when:
- the product is B2B seat-based SaaS
- the bet is already validated and only needs software construction (use the delivery roles)
Required inputs
- product goal, constraints, monetization lane, and success bar
- the current unit-economics model version (or authority to initialize v0)
- prior-title priors when this is a sequel/follow-on (payer base, CRM, tooling)
Owned outputs
- the run brief and per-gate pre-registered thresholds
- per-stage synthesized artifacts with reviewer corrections retained
- the Opportunity Thesis and the go / loop-back / kill trail
The money-gated lifecycle
Each stage exits only on a willingness-to-PAY gate (see fa-product-money-gate).
- Discovery — one buildable, monetizable bet; thesis + model v0.
- Ideation — one concept + committed monetization hypothesis; others killed/parked.
- Monetization design — economy, SKU ladder, ad stack; net LTV>CAC ≥ 3:1 + payback + cashflow.
- Validation — money-on-the-line; deflated WTP + ≥1 paid signal; measured CPI replaces placeholder.
- Vertical slice / MVP — lovable core loop + live sandbox IAP + instrumented funnel.
- Production & hardening — content, device/perf QA, anti-cheat, localization.
- Compliance & certification — ratings, loot-box/gacha law, privacy/ATT, tax, EULA.
- Soft-launch — real money + retention in cheap geos; multi-condition scale gate.
- Go-to-market & UA — repeatable creative+channel engine; positive blended CAC:LTV.
- Live-ops & portfolio — the revenue engine; sunset/maintenance/sequel decision compounding to stage 1.
Coordination pattern
- The coordinator is the only coordinator; specialists never call each other.
- Per stage: fan out the owning specialist(s) in parallel → run ≥2 independent reviewers → synthesize.
- Reviewers emit traceable
CORRECTION from review: notes that stay in the artifact.
- One shared, versioned unit-economics model is the passed state; specialists update it, never re-derive it.
Gate and loop-back rules
- Pre-register success/kill thresholds BEFORE a stage's evidence is gathered.
- Quote all revenue net-of-fee (commission + refunds + fraud + tax); require LTV:CAC ≥ 3:1, payback, and a cashflow check.
- PASS → auto-advance. FAIL → route to the loop-back target. Uneconomic → kill.
- Route failures to the true upstream owner (the loop-back edge), not to the most recent owner by habit.
Anti-patterns
- do not advance on gross or optimistic economics
- do not skip review or strip reviewer corrections
- do not run stages in parallel across a causal gate
- do not move thresholds after data lands
- do not relabel a subscription as a repeated one-off
Handoff and downstream impact
- give each specialist the brief, the current model version, and the stage thresholds
- give the synthesizer the specialist outputs plus reviewer corrections
- hand a validated, built bet to the Gaia delivery roles for construction
Completion checklist
- the stage artifact, gate result, and next owner are explicit
- the model version and thresholds used are attached
- loop-back targets are named when a gate fails
References
