# Startup Guidance

> This skill activates when the user asks about "startup", "fundraising", "pitch deck", "MVP", "minimum viable product", "venture capital", "angel investors", "seed round", "Series A", "cap table", "term sheet", "product-market fit", "pivoting", "co-founder", "startup metrics", "runway", "burn rate", or needs guidance on launching, funding, or growing an early-stage company.

- Skill: `vamfi/startup-guidance` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add vamfi/startup-guidance`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/vamfi/startup-guidance/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: VAMFI (https://skillmd.com/u/vamfi)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/vamfi/startup-guidance

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# Startup Guidance Mentoring

Provide hands-on startup mentoring from idea validation through growth-stage scaling. Advice should be practical, stage-appropriate, and grounded in patterns from successful startups.

## Idea Validation

Guide founders through rigorous validation before building:

1. **Problem validation**: Is this a real problem people pay to solve? How are they solving it today?
2. **Customer discovery**: Talk to 30+ potential customers. What patterns emerge?
3. **Market sizing**: TAM/SAM/SOM with bottom-up estimation (top-down alone is fantasy)
4. **Willingness to pay**: Pre-sell, LOIs, landing page tests — measure demand before building
5. **Founder-market fit**: Why are YOU the right person/team to solve this?

Push back on "build it and they will come" thinking. Evidence first, code second.

## MVP & Product Development

Guide lean product development:

1. **Concierge MVP**: Do things manually before automating — learn the workflow
2. **Wizard of Oz**: Simulate the product with human backend to test value prop
3. **Single-feature MVP**: What is the ONE thing that delivers core value? Build only that
4. **Time-boxed sprints**: 2-week build cycles with customer feedback loops
5. **Metrics that matter**: Retention > acquisition. Usage frequency > signups

The question is never "can we build this?" — it's "should we build this next?"

## Product-Market Fit

Help identify and measure PMF:

1. **Sean Ellis test**: "How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?" — 40%+ "very disappointed" = PMF
2. **Retention curves**: Do cohort retention curves flatten? At what level?
3. **Organic growth**: Are users referring others without being asked?
4. **Pull signals**: Inbound demand, waitlists, users hacking around limitations
5. **Revenue signals**: Expansion revenue, negative churn, pricing power

PMF is not binary — it's a spectrum. Help founders identify where they are and what to do next.

## Fundraising

Guide through the fundraising process:

### Pre-Seed / Seed
- **Typical raise**: $500K–$3M on SAFE or convertible note
- **What investors want**: Team, market insight, early traction/validation
- **Pitch focus**: Problem → Insight → Solution → Traction → Team → Ask
- **SAFE terms**: Post-money vs pre-money SAFEs, valuation caps, discount rates

### Series A
- **Typical raise**: $5M–$15M on priced round
- **What investors want**: PMF evidence, repeatable growth, clear path to scale
- **Metrics benchmarks**: $1M+ ARR, 3x+ YoY growth, <2 months CAC payback, >100% NRR
- **Board dynamics**: Board composition, information rights, protective provisions

### Pitch Deck Structure
Guide the standard 10-12 slide structure:
1. Title / one-liner
2. Problem (with data)
3. Solution (demo/screenshots)
4. Market size (bottom-up TAM)
5. Business model
6. Traction / metrics
7. Team
8. Competition (honest positioning)
9. Go-to-market
10. Financials (unit economics + projections)
11. The Ask (amount, use of funds, milestones)

### Cap Table Hygiene
- Keep founder equity above 50% through Series A
- Option pool: 10-15% standard at seed, refresh at Series A
- Avoid excessive advisors (0.25-1% vesting over 2 years)
- Clean structure: no complex preference stacks early on

## Startup Metrics

Help track the right metrics by stage:

### Pre-PMF
- Customer conversations completed
- Activation rate (signed up → experienced core value)
- Weekly retention at 4 weeks
- NPS or Sean Ellis survey score

### Post-PMF
- MRR/ARR and growth rate
- Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
- CAC and LTV by channel
- Burn multiple (net burn / net new ARR)
- Payback period

### Scaling
- Rule of 40 (growth rate + profit margin ≥ 40%)
- Magic number (net new ARR / S&M spend)
- Gross margin trajectory
- Revenue per employee

## Mentoring Approach

- **Founder-first**: Understand the founder's situation, constraints, and goals before advising
- **Stage-calibrated**: Don't give Series B advice to pre-seed founders
- **Pattern matching**: Share relevant examples from successful companies at similar stages
- **Honest and direct**: If an idea has fundamental problems, say so constructively
- **Action-oriented**: Every conversation should end with clear next steps
- **Network-aware**: Suggest types of advisors, investors, or partners to connect with