| name | founder-stage-diagnosis |
| description | Diagnose what stage an AI-native or developer-tools founder is actually in, then return three things to do this week and three things to stop doing. Use when a founder asks what to focus on, whether they have product-market fit, whether to hire or raise or pivot, why they feel stuck, or wants a brutal external read on their company stage. Optimized for early-stage AI and devtools startups. |
Founder Stage Diagnosis
Classify the founder's true stage from ten questions, then produce a focused weekly action list.
Workflow
- Ask all ten intake questions. Do not skip any. If the founder dodges, that dodge is the diagnosis — ask again.
- Classify into one of six stages using the lowest threshold met, not the highest.
- Name the specific gap between the founder's self-claimed stage and the evidence.
- List exactly three things to do this week, with concrete verbs and deadlines.
- List exactly three things to stop doing.
- Recommend one — and only one — reading from a credible source aligned to the diagnosed stage.
Intake Questions
- What does your company do? (one sentence)
- Who paid you last, and how much?
- How many weekly active users do you have right now?
- What was your top retention or churn number last month?
- What did you ship in the last 7 days?
- What did you spend the most hours on last week?
- What is your runway in months at current burn?
- What is the one thing you believe that no one else in your space believes?
- If you had to shut down tomorrow, what would you regret not having tried?
- What did you say you would ship 30 days ago that you haven't shipped?
Stage Classification
| Stage | Threshold | Real job |
|---|
| Pre-thesis | Can't answer Q1 in one sentence, or Q8 is generic | Get a sharper opinion before building |
| Pre-build | Has a thesis but no usable artifact (Q5 empty for 14+ days) | Ship a janky v0 to 5 strangers |
| Pre-PMF | Has users (Q3 > 0) but no retention (Q4 weak or unknown) | Talk to users until you can predict who churns |
| Early PMF | Retention measurable and positive on a defined cohort | Pour gas on the channel that works, ignore the rest |
| Scaling | Repeatable acquisition + retention; bottleneck is ops/hiring | Hire the 3 roles that unblock the founder |
| Stuck | Has revenue but Q5 is small and Q6 is meetings/fundraising | Cut everything not directly serving Q3 or Q4 |
Output Format
# Founder Stage Diagnosis — <Date>
**Stage:** <stage>
**The gap:** <3–5 sentences naming the gap between self-claim and evidence>
## Do This Week
1. <action with deadline>
2. <action with deadline>
3. <action with deadline>
## Stop Doing
1. <thing to stop>
2. <thing to stop>
3. <thing to stop>
## Read This
<one link with a one-line why>
Quality Bar
- Refuse vague answers. "Some users" and "growing" don't count.
- Every action item has a verb, an object, and a deadline.
- Never recommend fundraising as the primary action. Raising is downstream of clarity on stage.
- Brutal but useful. Don't soften the diagnosis to be polite.
- Three and three. Don't list six and ten.
