founder-forge

FounderForge

Zero to Strategy in One Session

Develop your Business Idea into an actionable strategy based on thorough market research and competitor analysis. Clarify your ICPs, USPs, Pricing, Brand Voice, Website copy and GTM playbook like a YC entrepreneur. Consultant-free.

What takes McKinsey 8 weeks and $200K, FounderForge builds in one session with live market research, battle-tested frameworks, and zero billable hours.

---

What You Get

Six interconnected strategy artifacts with each built through real market research and informed by the one before it:

1. Ideal Customer Profile: Know exactly who you're building for. Specific enough to find them on LinkedIn.
2. Positioning & USPs: Claim your space in a crowded market. Pass the "only we" test.
3. Brand Voice Framework: Sound like you, everywhere, every time. With "this, not that" guardrails.
4. Service Offerings & Pricing: Package and price your value. Grounded in market benchmarks.
5. Website Messaging Map: Turn visitors into customers. Page-by-page copy frameworks.
6. GTM Playbook: Pick your 1-2 channels, get a launch-ready playbook with 4-5 specific hooks per channel.

---

How It Works

Idea → Market Research → Strategic Q&A → 6 Artifacts
        (parallel)        (6-8 questions)   (built sequentially,
                                             each reviewed before
                                             the next begins)

1. Share your business idea: any stage, any business model
2. FounderForge researches your market: competitors, pricing, trends, customer behavior. Live web data, not guesses.
3. Strategic questions sharpen your positioning: 6-8 questions across target customer, differentiation, voice, pricing, proof, and scope
4. Six artifacts are forged one by one: each presented for your review before the next begins. Prior artifacts feed into subsequent ones.

---

Quick Start

Add the skill on command line with

npx skills add The-Edgar/founder-forge

# Run in Claude Code
/founder-forge Your business idea here

OR Install as a marketplace plugin.

# Run in Claude Code

# Step 1: register the marketplace (once per machine)
/plugin marketplace add The-Edgar/founder-forge

# Step 2: install the plugin
/plugin install founder-forge@founder-forge

# Step 3: run it
/founder-forge Your business idea here

Example:

/founder-forge Emergency wildlife removal app for after-hours encounters
/founder-forge AI protocol platform for functional medicine practitioners
/founder-forge Fractional CFO services for Series A startups

---

What Gets Built

Everything lands in founder-forge-output/:

founder-forge-output/
├── README.md                       ← Overview + table of contents
├── 01-ideal-customer-profile.md
├── 02-positioning-and-usps.md
├── 03-brand-voice-framework.md
├── 04-service-offerings-pricing.md
├── 05-website-messaging-map.md
└── 06-gtm-playbook.md              ← Channel-specific (your chosen channels)

---

Requirements

• Claude Code or Cowork
• Web search tools (required: FounderForge does real market research)

Recommended: Perplexity MCP server for citation-backed research

Fallback: Claude Code's built-in WebSearch

FounderForge will stop and tell you if search tools aren't available, with setup instructions.

---

The GTM Hook System

The GTM Playbook goes deeper than "post on LinkedIn." For each of your chosen channels (you pick 1-2), FounderForge:

1. Researches what's actually working on that channel in your niche right now
2. Generates 4-5 specific, ready-to-use hooks: not templates, but actual copy tailored to your ICP and positioning
3. Explains why each hook works: the psychology behind it in one line

Supported channels: Cold Email, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter/X, Reddit, YouTube, Partnerships, Communities/Events

---

Supported Business Types

FounderForge adapts its frameworks based on business type:

• Service businesses: Agencies, consultancies, freelancers, coaches
• SaaS products: Self-serve, sales-led, or PLG models
• B2B: Any company selling to businesses
• B2C: Direct-to-consumer brands and services

---

For Local Testing

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/The-Edgar/founder-forge
cd founder-forge

# Test locally
claude --plugin-dir .

Then in your Claude Code session:

/founder-forge [your business idea]

---

Contributing

PRs welcome for:

• Additional channel playbooks
• New reference guides for additional artifact types
• Improvements to existing frameworks
• Bug fixes in the command orchestration

---

License

MIT: use freely, modify freely, share freely.