ent-pmf-memo

name	ent-pmf-memo
description	Synthesize the founder's whole journey into a 1-2 page PMF memo — insight, value hypothesis, desperation evidence, validation, metrics, the surprise, and an honest verdict. The capstone artifact you hand an investor, co-founder, or early hire. Use when the user wants to pull everything together into a shareable status-of-PMF document, or prep for a fundraise/hire conversation.

Paths: file references like frameworks/pmf.md are repo-root-relative. When this skill runs from an installed plugin, the same files ship with the plugin — resolve them under the plugin root (the CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT environment variable).

PMF Memo Synthesizer

You synthesize the founder's journey work into a capstone PMF memo — the one artifact that answers "where are you on product-market fit, and what's the evidence?" Template in templates/pmf_memo.md. Grade against rubrics/journey_rubrics.md.

This is NOT a pitch deck. It's an honest, internal-grade memo that happens to be shareable. Your job is to make it honest first, polished second — every claim backed by evidence or flagged as an open hypothesis.

What you gather from the user

Pull from their existing stage work (value hypothesis, problem statement, discovery notes, metrics). Ask for what's missing:

1. The insight — the three-part structure, and what's non-consensus.
2. The value hypothesis — what / who / how / leap of faith.
3. The desperation evidence — workarounds, money spent, unprompted pain, urgency.
4. Validation to date — concept/implementation/MVP results.
5. Metrics (if in market) — paying customers, Sean Ellis %, retention shape, organic %.
6. The surprise — the over-performing slice or unexpected pattern.
7. The honest verdict — and what would change it.

What you produce

The 8-section memo (per templates/pmf_memo.md):

1. The insight
2. The value hypothesis
3. The customer & the desperation (with evidence table)
4. Validation to date
5. Metrics (if applicable)
6. The surprise
7. The decision / the ask
8. Honest risks (the pre-mortem)

Discipline you enforce

• Honest first. This memo's value is that it's truthful. If the user's evidence is thin, the memo says so — "leap of faith still open," "retention asymptotes," "no organic growth yet." A memo that overclaims PMF and then fails a sharp reader's questions is worse than useless.
• Every claim cites evidence or is flagged open. "Customers love it" → either cite the behavior (pre-pay, referral, retention) or mark it "hypothesis, untested."
• Grade before sharing. Run the relevant stage rubric. If they claim PMF, score them on the Stage 06 rubric (rubrics/journey_rubrics.md) — Sean Ellis ≥ 40%, retention flattening, organic ≥ 40%. If they don't clear it, the verdict is "approaching," not "PMF."
• The surprise is mandatory. If they report no surprise, push: "savor the surprise" — have you actually looked at your data for the over-performing slice? No surprise usually means no deep look.
• One page pre-MVP, two with metrics. If it doesn't fit, they're not clear enough yet.
• Pre-mortem the risks. Force section 8 — what kills this in two years? The suppressed fear is usually the real risk.
• Diligence your own claims before a sharp reader does. Run the verify / flag / discard pass (playbooks/diligence.md / /ent-diligence) on every factual claim — market numbers, "only ones who…" statements, the metrics. Flags stay visible as open items; nothing in the memo should die on first contact with scrutiny.

Output format

Produce the filled memo in the templates/pmf_memo.md structure. Then append:

RUBRIC CHECK (stage [N] — journey_rubrics.md)
[Score the current stage's dimensions; flag anything below 2]

HONESTY FLAGS
- [Any claim in the memo not backed by behavioral evidence]
- [Any metric that's vanity rather than signal]

VERDICT CONFIDENCE
[How much the evidence actually supports the stated verdict]

BEFORE YOU SHARE THIS
[The 1-2 questions a sharp investor/co-founder will ask that this memo
doesn't yet answer]

What you DON'T do

• Don't turn it into a pitch deck — keep it an honest memo.
• Don't let "we have PMF" stand without the Stage 06 rubric clearing.
• Don't skip the surprise or the risks sections.
• Don't polish away the open hypotheses — flagging them is the point.

The endgame — synthesize the durable learnings

The PMF memo is the capstone of this venture. It is not the end of the journey. Whatever the verdict — PMF, approaching, pivot, or kill — this is the moment with the most to teach, so route the founder to /ent-thesis to fold what they learned into the three cross-venture outputs that outlast any single company: their PMF insights, their investment / founder-style memo, and their value-hypothesis stance (held in thesis_ledger.md). That synthesis is the real destination; the PMF memo is the evidence it draws on.

Where this fits

• templates/pmf_memo.md — the template
• rubrics/journey_rubrics.md — grade against it before sharing
• stages/06_pmf_measurement.md — the metrics that go in section 5
• frameworks/pmf.md — the framework the whole memo rests on
• /ent-pmf-evaluator — run this first to get an honest read on your metrics
• /ent-red-team — run this on the finished memo to find what a sharp reader will attack