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name	bo
description	Comprehensive procedure for business goals including starting, growing, and operating businesses.
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Business Operations and Growth

Input: $ARGUMENTS

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Interpretations

Before executing, identify which interpretation matches the user's input:

Interpretation 1 — Business problem to solve: The user has a specific operational challenge (revenue, hiring, pricing, cash flow) and needs a framework applied to it. Interpretation 2 — Business idea to evaluate: The user has a new venture or product concept and wants to assess its viability, market fit, and economics before committing. Interpretation 3 — Business growth strategy: The user has an existing business and wants to identify the highest-leverage moves to scale revenue, efficiency, or market position.

If ambiguous, ask: "I can help with solving a specific business problem, evaluating a new business idea, or developing a growth strategy — which fits?" If clear from context, proceed with the matching interpretation.

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Overview

Comprehensive procedure for business goals including starting, growing, and operating businesses. Covers the gaps in the thin business domain.

Most business advice is generic. This procedure provides frameworks for the actual hard decisions.

Steps

Step 1: Classify the Business Question

What type of business challenge is the input?

Type	Route to	Key Question
Starting a business	Step 2a	Is this viable?
Revenue/sales	Step 2b	How to get customers?
Pricing	Step 2c	What to charge?
Hiring/team	Step 2d	Who to hire and when?
Growth	Step 2e	How to scale?
Operations	Step 2f	How to run efficiently?
Financial	Step 2g	How to manage money?

Step 2a: Starting — Viability Assessment

Before building anything:

1. Problem: What specific problem does this solve? For whom?
2. Evidence: How do you KNOW this is a real problem? (Not assumed — validated)
3. Solution: Why is YOUR solution better than alternatives?
4. Market: How many people have this problem and would pay to solve it?
5. Economics: Can you deliver the solution profitably?
6. Moat: What prevents a competitor from copying you?

• → INVOKE: /cd (customer development) for problem validation

Step 2b: Revenue — Customer Acquisition

1. Who is the ideal customer? (Specific, not "everyone")
2. Where are they? (Physical/digital channels)
3. What message resonates? (Problem → solution → proof)
4. How do they buy? (Sales process, decision factors)
5. Cost: What does it cost to acquire one customer?
6. Value: What is one customer worth over their lifetime?
7. Rule: Customer Lifetime Value must be > 3× Customer Acquisition Cost

Step 2c: Pricing

1. Cost-plus: What does it cost to deliver + target margin?
2. Value-based: What is the customer's alternative? Price below that.
3. Competitive: What do similar solutions cost?
4. Test: Try different prices and measure conversion × revenue
5. Common mistake: pricing too LOW (signals low quality, attracts wrong customers)

Step 2d: Hiring

1. When to hire: Only when the work exceeds what current people can do AND the hire will generate more revenue than their cost
2. Who first: Hire for your weakest critical function (not your favorite)
3. How to evaluate: Past results in similar context > credentials > interviews
4. Common mistake: Hiring before product-market fit is confirmed

Step 2e: Growth

1. Organic: Content, SEO, word of mouth, community
2. Paid: Advertising, partnerships, affiliate programs
3. Product-led: Free tier, viral features, network effects
4. Sales-led: Direct sales team, outbound, enterprise
5. Choose based on: Customer Acquisition Cost ceiling, product complexity, deal size

Step 2f: Operations

1. Systematize: Document processes so they're repeatable without you
2. Measure: Track the 3-5 metrics that actually matter (not vanity metrics)
3. Automate: Remove humans from processes that don't need judgment
4. Delegate: Give others authority to make decisions in their domain
5. Key metric: Revenue per employee (simplest measure of operational efficiency)

Step 2g: Financial Management

1. Cash flow: Revenue timing vs expense timing (this kills businesses, not profitability)
2. Unit economics: Revenue per customer - cost per customer = margin per customer
3. Runway: Cash ÷ monthly burn = months until broke
4. Break-even: Fixed costs ÷ margin per unit = units to break even
5. → INVOKE: /bm (budget management) for detailed financial planning
6. → INVOKE: /cfm (cash flow management) for cash flow optimization

Step 3: Apply Framework to Input

1. Classify the input (Step 1)
2. Apply the relevant sub-step
3. Identify the key decision or action needed
4. Check: is the advice specific enough to act on? If not, ask for more context

Step 4: Report

BUSINESS ANALYSIS:
Question type: [classification]
Key challenge: [the core problem]

Analysis:
[Framework application with specific recommendations]

Key metrics to track:
1. [metric] — current: [value] — target: [value]

Next actions:
1. [specific action]
2. [specific action]

Risks:
1. [risk] — mitigation: [action]

Related procedures: [which other skills might help]

When to Use

• Starting a business
• Growing an existing business
• Sales and revenue generation
• Hiring and team building
• Pricing and positioning
• Financial planning and management
• → INVOKE: /cd (customer development) for validation
• → INVOKE: /pos (positioning) for market positioning
• → INVOKE: /fm (financial modeling) for projections

Verification

• Business question correctly classified
• Framework applied with specifics (not generic advice)
• Key metrics identified
• Actions are specific and actionable
• Risks identified with mitigations