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.
npx agentmods add skills/nweii/agent-stuff/validating-startup-ideasnpx skills add nweii/agent-stuff --skill validating-startup-ideasgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nweii/agent-stuffWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/nweii/agent-stuff/validating-startup-ideas)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nweii/agent-stuff/validating-startup-ideas"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nweii/agent-stuff/validating-startup-ideas.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5 | $0.00049 | $0.00996 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00024 | $0.00498 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00010 | $0.00199 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00100 |
Grade A, and why
validating-startup-ideas 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 3d 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 90 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Validating Startup Ideas
Apply these frameworks as lenses to what the user brings—use them to surface blindspots, ask sharper questions, or reframe what's being worked on. This skill works at any stage of idea maturity.
Every complaint signals someone willing to pay for a better solution. But finding complaints is only the start—great products give users a premise that normalizes new behavior.
Finding problems
Mine complaints from platforms where users express frustration:
| Product type | Source | Search for |
|---|---|---|
| B2B | G2, Capterra (1-2★ reviews) | "doesn't have", "wish it could", "missing", "can't" |
| B2C services | Reddit + "[topic] frustrating" | r/mildlyinfuriating, niche hobby subs, r/entrepreneur |
| Automation | Upwork job posts | "weekly", "monthly", "ongoing", "repeat" |
| Mobile apps | App Store 1★ reviews | Same complaint 20+ times |
Reddit: Sort by comments, not upvotes. High comments = heated debate = real problem.
Upwork: If 100+ people paying $20/hr for a task, they'll pay $50/mo to automate it.
Evaluating ideas
From Lenny Rachitsky's B2B framework—four signs your idea has legs:
- Payment: Strangers pay you money (not just friends/connections)
- Retention: Continued usage despite hacky MVP
- Emotion: Hatred for incumbents or strong pull toward your idea
- Inbound: Cold interest without marketing
Quick validation checklist:
- 30+ people with same complaint
- Already paying for inferior alternative
- Existing solution has obvious flaw
Tarpit detection
Dalton Caldwell (YC): Tarpits are ideas that seem promising, validate easily, and attract lots of founders—but systematically fail. Classic examples: "apps to coordinate hangouts with friends," music discovery, Foursquare clones. Warning signs:
What ships with it
1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
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.
- 3d ago First seen · 90 lines · 49 tokens per session scan A 19b20c02edaf
validating-startup-ideas is a skill published in the GitHub repository nweii/agent-stuff (8 stars, last pushed 15d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 996 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-08-31.
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