startup-pipeline — Claude Code skill: idea to investor-ready
Moves a startup idea through four stages: brainstorm, validation, market research and pitch materials. Gates between stages stop weak ideas early.
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a claude-codeWhat startup-pipeline does
The skill splits work on an idea into four stages. Stage one produces 8–15 ideas and narrows them to three. A quick filter then returns GO, TEST MORE or PASS. Survivors go through market research and competitor teardowns, and the last stage turns them into a pitch deck, a one-pager and investor emails.
Gates sit between the stages, and each one has conditions you have to meet. Gate 3, for instance, asks for a market above $100M TAM on the VC path or above $1M for bootstrap, a clear gap among competitors, and a realistic way to reach the first 100 users. Miss them and the project goes to the archive with its research.
Progress lives in config.json at the project root: projectName, outputDir, defaultAudience, fundingGoal and currentStage. Stage files land in prefixed folders — 01-brainstorm/, 02-research/, 03-validation/, 04-build/ — so they stay in order. The skill works with WebSearch and Read. Come back to a project a week later and re-read the earlier stage files first; context drifts, and stale notes make the gate checks meaningless.
What it helps with
- take an idea from brainstorm to a pitch deck without skipping steps
- kill weak ideas before they eat weeks of work
- run market research and competitor teardowns on one idea
- turn finished research into a one-pager and investor emails
- resume a project in a new session from saved stage progress
Example prompts for the agent
- Run the full pipeline for a B2B SaaS idea
- Brainstorm around remote team tooling and validate the top 3
- Deep-dive the market and competitors for the my-idea project
How to install startup-pipeline
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a claude-code2Manually: put the files in place
~/.claude/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.mdCopy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/startup-pipeline/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a codex2Manually: put the files in place
.agents/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.mdFor all projects use ~/.agents/skills/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a cursor2Manually: put the files in place
.cursor/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.mdCursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/
1GitHub CLI
gh skill install c0x12c/ai-toolkit startup-pipeline2Manually: put the files in place
.github/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.md1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a gemini-cli2Platform CLI
gemini skills install https://github.com/c0x12c/ai-toolkit --path toolkit/skills/startup-pipelineManually: put the files in place
.devin/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.mdThe legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works
Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a opencodeClaude.ai
Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills
Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to install skills in Claude Code: five ways
Questions about startup-pipeline
How do I install startup-pipeline in Claude Code?
Run npx skills add c0x12c/ai-toolkit --skill startup-pipeline -a claude-code. The skill lands at ~/.claude/skills/startup-pipeline/SKILL.md.
What does startup-pipeline do?
It walks an idea through four stages: idea generation, validation, market and competitor research, and pitch material assembly. A gate sits at the end of each stage and has to be passed before moving on.
What does the skill need to run?
A config.json at the project root holding projectName, outputDir, defaultAudience, fundingGoal and currentStage. The skill uses the WebSearch and Read tools.
