| 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"):
- How many hours / week am I working in the last 4 weeks? (Honest count, not "as much as needed".)
- When was my last full day off, no work checking? (Specific date.)
- What's my current sleep average? (Hours / night last week.)
- What's been on my mind that I haven't told my cofounder? (Forced honesty — even one item is signal.)
- What's been on my mind that I haven't told my partner / family? (Same.)
- What's my personal cash runway (savings ÷ personal monthly burn)? (Months.)
- What's the company runway (cash ÷ monthly burn)? (Months. Should match
/slo-metrics.)
- What's the worst thing that could happen to the company in the next 90 days? (Concrete, not "things go badly".)
- What's the worst thing that could happen to me personally in the next 90 days? (Health, family, financial.)
- If the company died tomorrow, what would I do for income in 30 days? (Concrete plan, even if hypothetical.)
- Am I still excited about this every day? (Calibrated honestly — peaks AND troughs are normal; a flat line is the warning.)
- 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
- Non-UK founder → canonical "v1 supports UK only" error.
- Suppressed / denial-shaped answers → re-prompt with "what's the concrete answer?".
- Worst-case worksheet without explicit cost-cut tiers → reject; demand specificity.
- 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.
