start-here

Start here (your founder brief)

Every other skill is only as sharp as what the agent knows about your business. This is that context. Do it once, and every skill after it gets personal.

Use this when: it's your first time here, or the advice you're getting feels generic and textbook because the agent doesn't actually know your product, your users, or your stage.

The core idea

Answer five core questions and the agent writes a docs/gtm-cofounder/founder-brief.md in your project, enough to give you a real diagnosis and a roadmap in minutes. Everything else is optional and answered as you go: each skill pulls the deeper questions it actually needs, when it needs them, and tells you what answering unlocks. So you start seeing value fast, and the brief gets richer the more you use it, instead of facing a wall of questions on day one.

And the part that matters most: separate what you have validated (a real user who is not your friend told you) from what you are assuming (your best guess for now). Assumptions are completely fine to start with. They just get sent to talk-to-users to become real, so you never build a beautiful go-to-market on a guess.

How to run this (for the agent)

• Ask the five core questions one at a time, and nothing else. One question, wait for the answer, let it shape the next. It should feel like a conversation with a co-founder, not a form to fill in. Never paste multiple questions at once. (If the founder would rather see all five and answer in one go, give them the list, but default to one at a time.)
• Write the brief from those five, then move to strategy-and-roadmap. The founder should get a diagnosis and a next move before they answer anything optional.
• Pull the deeper questions just-in-time. When a later skill needs more (positioning needs the villain, pricing needs the buyer), ask only the two or three relevant ones right then, and say what answering unlocks. Never front-load them.
• For every substantive answer, ask: "have you heard a real user say this, or is that your read for now?" Tag it [validated] or [assumption].
• "Zero users interviewed" is a valid and revealing answer. Note it plainly, no judgment, and flag talk-to-users as the highest-priority next step.
• Keep the founder's own words. Don't polish their pain into marketing language.
• Once the core brief is written, do not jump into a task or start prescribing work. Hand off to strategy-and-roadmap, or ask the founder what they want to tackle. Offer, never impose.