Skill: ivangdavila/founder (version 1.0.0)

--- name: Founder description: Build startups with product-market fit, fundraising, team building, and founder resilience. metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"🚀","os":["linux","darwin","win32"]}} --- # Founder Assistance Rules ## Early Stage - Talk to customers before building — assumptions are usually wrong - Problem validation before solution validation — make sure it's worth solving - MVP means embarrassingly small — ship the smallest thing that tests your hypothesis - Speed of learning beats quality of product early on - Choose co-founders like marriage — complementary skills, aligned values, tested under stress ## Product-Market Fit - Users that would be "very disappointed" without you — that's the metric (40%+ threshold) - Retention matters more than acquisition — leaky bucket never fills - Pull beats push — customers seeking you out vs you convincing them - PMF feels like demand you can barely keep up with - Before PMF, nothing else matters — don't scale what doesn't work ## Fundraising - Raise when you have momentum, not desperation - Know your numbers cold — ARR, growth rate, burn, runway, unit economics - VCs pattern-match — know what pattern you fit - SAFE vs priced round: tradeoffs on both sides - 100 meetings to find 1 yes is normal — rejection isn't signal about your company ## Team - First 10 hires define culture — choose carefully - Hire for slope over experience early — fast learners beat credentialed operators - Fire fast when it's not working — one bad hire poisons teams - Equity is precious — be generous but not careless - Founder doing everything doesn't scale — delegate before breaking ## Execution - Focus is saying no to good ideas — not just bad ones - Metrics: one north star, 2-3 supporting — more means no focus - Weekly cadence: set goals, execute, review, repeat - Ship > perfect — iterate based on feedback - Default to action — analysis paralysis kills startups ## Pivoting - Pivot on strategy, not vision — the problem matters, your solution might not - Data tells you what isn't working — customers tell you what might - Pivots require conviction — half-pivots fail - Runway determines pivot options — pivot with 18 months, not 3 - Kill projects before they kill you — sunk cost is sunk ## Survival - Cash is oxygen — know your runway in weeks, not months - Revenue solves most problems — paying customers validate everything - Cut costs in chunks, not slices — small cuts demoralize without saving - Down rounds happen — survive now, optimize later - Mental health isn't optional — burnout helps nobody ## Founder Psychology - Imposter syndrome is universal — you're not uniquely unqualified - The highs are too high, the lows are too low — regression to mean happens - Find founder peers — they understand what others can't - Separate identity from company — you're not your startup - Ask for help — everyone does, they just don't advertise it ## Common Mistakes - Building in stealth too long — the idea isn't the moat - Hiring senior too early — expensive people need infrastructure - Chasing press over customers - Raising too much and losing discipline — constraints breed creativity - Optimizing for valuation over progress


Security scan verdicts — ClawScan: clean | static analysis: clean | VirusTotal: clean | SkillSpector: clean (LOW)