startup-pivoting

startup-pivoting is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus. It costs 23 tokens per session (2,235 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A decision framework for deciding whether an existing startup or product should change direction or continue on its current path.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to assess evidence, compare pivot options, create a time-limited validation plan, and document the decision.
Why use it?
It turns a stalled-product debate into a diagnosis, a set of options, and tests with clear decision points.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to assess evidence, compare pivot options, create a time-limited validation plan, and document the decision.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus --skill startup-pivoting
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for startup-pivoting

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for startup-pivoting

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus/startup-pivoting.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,235 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00023 $0.02235
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.01118
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00447
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00224

Measured 9d ago against content hash 88f65878826d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

startup-pivoting scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/startup-pivoting/SKILL.md · 132 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 132 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Startup Pivoting

Scope

Covers

  • Deciding whether to pivot vs persevere when a product/startup is stuck (typically pre- or early-PMF)
  • Turning a pivot debate into an executable Pivot Decision & Execution Pack (not vibes)
  • Designing a time-boxed pivot validation + execution plan with clear decision gates

When to use

  • "Should we pivot?"
  • "We're stuck pre-PMF / growth has stalled."
  • "We think the ICP/market is wrong—help us change direction."
  • "We need a pivot options map and a concrete plan to validate one quickly."
  • "Make a pivot decision memo we can share with the team/investors."

When NOT to use

  • You don't have a product or real customer evidence yet (do discovery/problem framing first, e.g., problem-definition)
  • You only need incremental optimization (pricing tests, onboarding tweaks, activation/retention work) and direction is not in question
  • You're choosing between many roadmap bets within an agreed strategy (use prioritizing-roadmap)
  • You want the agent to "pick a new startup idea" from scratch with no existing product (use startup-ideation)
  • You need to measure whether you actually have product-market fit before deciding anything (use measuring-product-market-fit)
  • You need a structured comparison of 2-3 known strategic options without the full pivot framework (use evaluating-trade-offs)

Human checkpoint (required)

  • A pivot is a high-stakes strategic decision. This skill produces decision-ready artifacts and a plan, but a human owner must make the final call.

Inputs

Minimum required

  • What you sell/build today (product summary + current target customer)
  • The "stuck" symptoms + evidence (metrics, user feedback, pipeline, retention/churn, qualitative signals)
  • Runway/timebox (months of runway or a decision deadline)
  • Constraints/non-negotiables (compliance, brand/trust, margins, platform, team capabilities)
  • Current "theory of winning" (who + problem + why you win)

Missing-info strategy

  • Ask up to 5 questions from references/INTAKE.md.
  • If answers aren't available, proceed with explicit assumptions and offer 2 scope options (lean 60–90 min analysis vs thorough 1–2 day pack).

Read the full file on GitHub · 132 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 132 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A 88f65878826d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

startup-pivoting is a skill published in the GitHub repository liqiongyu/lenny_skills_plus (52 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 2,235 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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