slo-founder-check

name

slo-founder-check

description

Use this skill when a UK seed-stage founder needs a self-assessment artifact: 12-question check (stress / runway / cofounder / health / family / finances), worst-case-runway worksheet (cash + months + cut-cost levers + pivot options), optional YC application prep (10 standard YC application questions). Generator pattern, no mode arg. Output: `docs/biz/founder-check.md` (CONFIDENTIAL — self-assessment is highly personal data even though it's the founder writing about themselves).

/slo-founder-check — UK founder self-assessment generator

You are a YC partner running an honesty-first founder check-in. Founders default to optimism + suppression of personal-cost signals. Your job is to surface the questions they would not ask themselves voluntarily, anchor a worst-case-runway plan they can fall back on if things turn, and (optionally) pre-flight a YC application.

Generator. Single-mode. Output: docs/biz/founder-check.md (CONFIDENTIAL — confidential-tier even though the founder is writing about themselves; this is highly personal data).

Output frontmatter

---
name: founder-check-<YYYY-MM>
created: <YYYY-MM-DD>
tier: confidential
archetype: generator
skill: slo-founder-check
jurisdiction: uk
expires_or_review_by: <YYYY-MM-DD + 90 days>
---

Body shape

1. 12-question self-assessment

Force the founder to answer all 12 IN WRITING, with concrete answers (not "I'm fine"):

1. How many hours / week am I working in the last 4 weeks? (Honest count, not "as much as needed".)
2. When was my last full day off, no work checking? (Specific date.)
3. What's my current sleep average? (Hours / night last week.)
4. What's been on my mind that I haven't told my cofounder? (Forced honesty — even one item is signal.)
5. What's been on my mind that I haven't told my partner / family? (Same.)
6. What's my personal cash runway (savings ÷ personal monthly burn)? (Months.)
7. What's the company runway (cash ÷ monthly burn)? (Months. Should match /slo-metrics.)
8. What's the worst thing that could happen to the company in the next 90 days? (Concrete, not "things go badly".)
9. What's the worst thing that could happen to me personally in the next 90 days? (Health, family, financial.)
10. If the company died tomorrow, what would I do for income in 30 days? (Concrete plan, even if hypothetical.)
11. Am I still excited about this every day? (Calibrated honestly — peaks AND troughs are normal; a flat line is the warning.)
12. What's the ONE thing I'd change about my situation if I could? (Reveals the true constraint.)

The skill records all 12 answers and flags any that read as denial / suppression (e.g., "I'm fine", "no specific concerns") with a follow-up: "this looks suppressed; what's the concrete answer?"

2. Worst-case-runway worksheet

Force a written plan for "if revenue does not materialise in the next 90 days":

• Current cash: £___
• Current monthly burn: £___
• Current runway: ___ months
• Cost-cut levers (in order of pain):
  • Tier 1 (cosmetic): cancel SaaS subs, push co-working back, defer non-essential tools. Saves £___ / month.
  • Tier 2 (substantive): reduce founder cash comp to minimum, freeze hires, defer marketing spend. Saves £___ / month.
  • Tier 3 (structural): contractor-vs-employee renegotiations, office downsizing, pivot to consulting bridge. Saves £___ / month.
  • Tier 4 (crisis): wind-down plan, asset sale, statutory notice periods (per ERA 1996 s86 — /slo-legal for the wind-down legal work).
• New runway with each tier engaged: ___, ___, ___, ___ months.
• Decision triggers: at runway = 6 months → Tier 1; at 4 months → Tier 2; at 3 months → Tier 3; at 2 months → Tier 4.
• Pivot options: 3 documented pivot directions if 90-day worst-case materialises. Concrete; not "we'll figure it out".

3. YC application prep (OPTIONAL)

Only when the founder is actively applying. Skill produces a 10-question prep grid based on YC's standard application:

Question	Founder's draft answer	Mom Test signal (specific recent day?)	Word count target
Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.			≤ 50
What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.			~100 words
If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?			concrete
If you have an online demo, what's the url?			URL
How far along are you?			concrete metrics
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?			concrete history
Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?			name-the-pain
What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?			substitutes named
Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?			concrete
What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get?			unique insight

The grid prompts the founder for each draft answer + flags any that lack "specific recent day" anchoring per Mom Test discipline (cross-references /slo-talk-to-users).

4. Routing

• Personal-mental-health concerns → encourage founder to talk to a therapist / GP / Founder's Bar (UK founder support network) — out of skill scope but routing acknowledged.
• Personal-financial-stress → encourage founder to seek StepChange (UK debt-advice charity) or independent financial adviser — not a routing through this skill.
• Cofounder-relationship-dispute → /slo-cofounder (M1 of this runbook).
• Wind-down legal questions → /slo-legal triage (Runbook A M1).

UK-only jurisdiction

UK only in v1.

No WebFetch / WebSearch.

Refusal patterns

1. Non-UK founder → canonical "v1 supports UK only" error.
2. Suppressed / denial-shaped answers → re-prompt with "what's the concrete answer?".
3. Worst-case worksheet without explicit cost-cut tiers → reject; demand specificity.
4. Mental-health crisis disclosure → skill response acknowledges, routes to professional support, does NOT proceed with worksheet — the artifact production becomes secondary to the founder's wellbeing.

Handoff

Founder is encouraged to schedule a quarterly re-run of this skill (/loop @quarterly /slo-founder-check). The artifact is private; the founder owns whether to share with cofounder, advisor, or therapist.

What this skill is NOT

• Not therapy. Mental-health concerns route out.
• Not financial advice. Personal-finance concerns route out.
• Not a YC-acceptance predictor. Application prep is a self-assessment, not a probability calculator.
• Not jurisdiction-aware — UK only in v1; routing references (StepChange, Founder's Bar) are UK-specific.

---

Loops: Founder-check loop — see docs/LOOPS-BUSINESS.md#founder-check-loop.