The-Utopia-Studio Fellow Path Router
What it does
Takes a fellow's whole situation — not an idea — and returns their route through Icarus. It classifies them as Type A (blank page), Type B (traction, no moat), or Type C (mature product), grades that type on the evidence ladder, and hands back two things: a stage ledger that marks each of the nine Icarus sections KEEP / TRIM / SUBTRACT / LEAP for this fellow, and a think:build:test ratio derived from the one risk most likely to kill this type. It is the first thing a fellow runs at onboarding, before any single idea is torn down. It answers "which stages are mine and in what order", not "is my idea good".
The Icarus reframe
Generic onboarding pushes everyone down the same funnel. Icarus has an opinion: the biggest waste is not skipping a stage, it is re-running a stage whose answer you have already earned with behaviour or money. So the router SUBTRACTS stages you have evidenced past and REFUSES to let you LEAP a stage you only feel you have done. The type is not self-declared — it is graded to the highest rung of evidence the fellow can actually show, and it rounds down, never up. A founder who says "mature product" but cannot show flattening retention is Type B, not C, and the router says so. The ratio is not a vibe: each type has one dominant failure mode, and the split falls straight out of it — a blank page dies from building the wrong thing, so build is capped near zero; a traction- without-moat product dies from being copied, so build is capped and the moat is tested. A router that gives two types the same ledger has done no work.
When to use / When NOT
Use it at first contact with a fellow, when they ask where to begin, which stages apply, what to skip, or how to onboard. Use it whenever a fellow's stage is unclear and effort could go to the wrong section.
| Not this skill | Use instead | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "Tear my idea apart / what am I missing / what should I build first" | concept-council |
That is a five-lens teardown of one raw idea ending in a probe. This routes the fellow's path across sections; it does not judge the idea. |
| "Is this idea worth doing / pressure-test it / so what" | so-what-stress-test |
That gates one idea across five business questions. This sequences stages, it does not grade a concept. |
| "How is this fellow doing / assess them / level them up" | fellow-level-ladder |
That grades the person's mastery (Literate→Author). This routes the product's path. A Frontier-level fellow can still be on a Type A product. |
| "Should we build or use the platform / what does Daedalus give me" | platform-vs-venture |
That draws the build-vs-buy line for platform primitives. This sequences the fellow's own stages. |
If the fellow gives no product signal and no problem signal, do not fabricate a type. Ask the one classifying question (below) and stop.
Method
Copy this checklist and work top to bottom. Fill template.md as you go.
Fellow Path Router progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Restate the situation in one line + name the highest evidence rung shown
- [ ] Step 2: Classify by the evidence gate (round down over-claims; round up under-claims)
- [ ] Step 3: Fill the stage ledger — keep/trim/subtract/leap per section, with why + tripwire
- [ ] Step 4: Name the dominant risk for this type
- [ ] Step 5: Set the think:build:test ratio from the dominant risk, with rationale
- [ ] Step 6: Name the entry point + the first artefact to produce
- [ ] Step 7: Run the kill-line self-check before returning
Step 1 — Situation and evidence rung
Write the fellow's situation back in one line. Then name the single highest rung of the evidence ladder they can show: money moved (1.0), behaviour observed (0.7), artefact shown (0.5), verbal commitment (0.3), opinion (0.1). If they name no product and no problem, ask the one classifying question — "Do real users already touch something you shipped, or is this still a domain and a hunch?" — and stop. Invent no product, no usage, no number.
Step 2 — Classify by the evidence gate
The type is the highest rung the fellow can evidence, not the one they claim.
| Highest rung the fellow can show | Type | One-line meaning |
|---|---|---|
| No shipped product; best is a problem opinion or artefact (≤0.5) | A — blank page | Still deciding what to build |
| A product real users touch at behaviour or money (≥0.7), but the moat is still a plan (≤0.3) | B — traction, no moat | Has demand, at risk of being copied |
| Product plus money AND a compounding asset with evidence it is accruing — flattening retention or a growing proprietary corpus at ≥0.7 | C — mature product | Has a moat forming, must keep it compounding |
Round the claim down, never up:
- Claims C, cannot show flattening retention or a compounding asset → regrade B.
- Claims B, product usage is free or opinion only (≤0.5) → regrade A.
- Claims A but already has paying users → up-grade B; do not waste them on a front funnel they have earned past.
State the down-grade or up-grade out loud, with the rung that forced it. The most common correction is C→B.
Step 3 — Fill the stage ledger
Mark each Icarus section for THIS fellow's type. Verbs: KEEP run in full; TRIM run a light version; SUBTRACT skip, with the tripwire that would re-add it; LEAP jump ahead and start here; GATED run only once a probe clears 0.7; not yet blocked until an earlier stage lands.
| Section | A — blank page | B — traction, no moat | C — mature product |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00 concept-council | KEEP — entry point | SUBTRACT · tripwire: pivoting to a new problem → re-enter here | SUBTRACT · tripwire: launching a new line → that line re-enters as its own Type A |
| 01 first-principles-problem | KEEP | TRIM — traction answers "is it real"; re-run only product-as-decision to sharpen |
SUBTRACT |
| 02 customer-discovery | KEEP | TRIM — mine your own users via trace-to-interview, don't cold-start |
TRIM — continuous / trace-driven, not fresh interviews |
| 03 yoda-your-own-data | KEEP — start the corpus | KEEP — this is your missing moat piece | KEEP — the corpus is the compounding asset |
| 04 probes | KEEP — earn the right to build | KEEP — probe the moat wedge, not the next feature | SUBTRACT — you are past demand proof |
| 05 frame | TRIM — light frame + first mocks | SUBTRACT first-mocks (live product); KEEP usability-test-protocol |
TRIM — frame the next bet only |
| 06 invent-wedge-moat | TRIM — sketch the moat hypothesis, don't over-build it yet | KEEP — the whole point for this type | KEEP — defend and deepen the moat |
| 07 commit-build-v1 | GATED — not until a probe clears 0.7 | KEEP — eval-first-spec + guardrail-design + value-based-pricing |
KEEP — tighten guardrails and pricing |
| 08 refine-flywheel | not yet | TRIM — start the retention-flattening check now | KEEP — the core; the loop is where value compounds |
Step 4 — Name the dominant risk
Each type dies one way. Name it in one sentence; the ratio in Step 5 must answer it.
| Type | Dominant risk (the thing most likely to kill it) |
|---|---|
| A | Building something nobody needs. A killed concept costs a week; a built wrong product costs a quarter. |
| B | Commoditisation. Every week shipping features is a week the moat does not compound, and a copyable product loses. |
| C | The flywheel stalls, or autonomy gets promoted by feel instead of by eval result. |
Step 5 — Set the think:build:test ratio
Split the fellow's next 4–6 weeks of effort across three modes, summing to 10. Think = deciding what to build and why it is defensible (00, 01, 02, 03, 05-frame, 06-invent). Build = shipping the v1 / agent / workflow (07, 09). Test = getting evidence back — probes, usability, evals, flywheel measurement (04, 05-usability, 07-eval-first, 08). The split is not free; it must be justified by the dominant risk.
| Type | think : build : test | Why this split (must tie to the risk) |
|---|---|---|
| A | 6 : 1 : 3 | Build is capped near zero — the only expensive mistake is building. Test (probes) is how you earn each unit of build. Build stays low until a probe clears behaviour 0.7. |
| B | 4 : 2 : 4 | Think is re-pointed at the moat, not the problem (traction already answered that). Build is capped at 2 — feature-shipping is the trap that starves the moat. Test proves the moat hypothesis. |
| C | 2 : 4 : 4 | Think is cheap now (discovery is trace-driven). Build is shipping-behind-signoff. Test is re-running the whole eval set on every model release — the discipline most pilots skip. |
The build number is a cap, not a target. Effort above it requires a probe result at 0.7.
Step 6 — Entry point and first artefact
| Type | Open this stage first | First artefact to produce |
|---|---|---|
| A | 00 concept-council |
A Gap Map + one probe under a week |
| B | 03 yoda-your-own-data, then 06 invent-wedge-moat |
An explicit/tacit ledger + a moat-design canvas |
| C | 08 refine-flywheel |
A flywheel cadence doc + the re-run-evals-on-model-release schedule |
Step 7 — Kill-line self-check
Run the checks at the foot of template.md. If any fails, the route is wrong, not the template.
Evidence standard
The type itself is scored on the ladder — money 1.0 → behaviour 0.7 → artefact 0.5 →
commitment 0.3 → opinion 0.1. A fellow cannot self-declare a type; each carries an evidence
bar. B requires behaviour or money (≥0.7) on the product. C requires a compounding asset
with evidence it is accruing (≥0.7). When the evidence is missing, the default is the lower
type, never the flattering one. Tag every situation claim [Fact], [Assumption], or
[Hypothesis]; an untagged "we have traction" is an opinion until behaviour or money backs
it. Done means: type graded with the rung that set it, a ledger that differs by type, and a
ratio whose build cap is justified by the named risk. Never let an opinion promote a type or
lift a build cap.
Gotchas
- Type is claimed, not shown. Fellows round up. "Mature product" often means a free beta with churn; "traction" often means five friends on a free tier. Grade to the highest rung they can evidence and name the down-grade with the rung that forced it.
- Subtracting a stage is not skipping its evidence. A Type B subtracts concept-council because the concept survived contact, not because teardown is beneath them. Every SUBTRACT carries a tripwire; a pivot to a new problem fires it and sends them back to 00.
- The ratio is a cap, not a suggestion. Type B's build:2 is the whole point. A router that lets a Type B spend 6 on build has failed the type — it has funded the commoditisation it was meant to prevent.
- Same flow for everyone is the failure mode. If two types come out with the same ledger or the same ratio, the classification did no work. Differentiation is the deliverable; a generic funnel is the auto-fail.
- A working tool is not always a venture. The mundane case — a live internal tool with
real users — can still be a feature, not a business. When the moat section returns "nothing
compounds here", route to
so-what-stress-testbefore funding more build.
Examples
See examples/sample.md for a full run on Mentix: a factory-copilot pilot the fellow calls "traction-ready" is graded to Type B (behaviour 0.7 on usage, moat still a plan at 0.3, so not C), routed to LEAP into YODA and the moat sections with 00/01 subtracted, and handed a 4:2:4 ratio whose build cap is justified by the commoditisation risk.
Related skills
- Sits in section 00 beside
concept-councilandso-what-stress-test. Those tear down or gate ONE idea; this routes the fellow's whole path across sections 00–08. Run this first at onboarding; run those when a specific idea needs attacking. - Feeds every downstream section by naming the entry point and first artefact.
- Not
fellow-level-ladder(section 10): that grades the person's mastery; this routes the product's path. The two are orthogonal — a fellow of any level can be on any product type. - Not
platform-vs-venture: that draws the build-vs-buy line for platform primitives; this sequences the fellow's own stages. - Supersedes nothing. It is the module's front door.