Playbook
Choose Business Model
The work this situation takes, including the parts that are easy to miss. Start with any one.
Unit economics and contribution margin
A correct per-transaction contribution-margin calculator, verified on held-out cases.
Net revenue retention with leaky-bucket flag
A correct NRR computation (net of expansion) with a leaky-bucket verdict and a benchmark comparison.
Net Promoter Score
A correct NPS from raw 0-10 responses, with the promoter/passive/detractor breakdown.
Weighted sales forecast from your pipeline
A weighted, discount-adjusted forecast: each deal weighted by its stage probability and rolled up by month.
Customer lifetime value (simple and discounted)
The customer lifetime in years, the simple LTV, and the discount-adjusted LTV you can put against CAC.
SaaS magic number
Your SaaS magic number (annualized new revenue over prior-quarter sales-and-marketing spend) with an efficiency band telling you whether to scale acquisition.
Cash-flow watch register
A structured cash-flow watch register listing the cash metrics to track (cash balance, net burn, runway months, revenue), each with a current value, an alert threshold, a direction, and an accountable owner, so cash flow is monitored obsessively rather than discovered too late.
Compute the break-even sales change for a price change
You get the minimum percent (and unit) sales-volume change at which a proposed price change leaves total profit contribution unchanged.
Compute self-employment tax and quarterly estimated payments for a supplied tax year
You get your self-employment tax for the supplied net earnings plus the four equal quarterly estimated payments, computed for the tax-year rates and thresholds you provide.
Compute economic value to the customer (EVE) and the viable price range
You get the total economic value to the customer (EVE) and the viable price range (ceiling and floor) for one product in one customer segment, built up from a next-best-alternative reference price and a set of signed monetary value-driver deltas.
Build a Plan-B Survival Plan
A structured survival-plan document that names the fundraise (Plan A) assumption, the dated switch trigger, the specific cost-cut and revenue actions of Plan B, and the resulting runway, so the team has a written fallback instead of vague optimism.
Build a Runway-to-Profitability Monthly Projection
A structured monthly financial projection (a table of months with cash, revenue, expenses, net) that is arithmetically self-consistent, covers the required horizon, and explicitly marks the profitability crossover month, so the team and investors see the trajectory rather than a single number.
Build the Startup Pitch Financials Table
A structured financials block for a fundraising pitch containing market size, market growth rate, the business-model line items, and historical/projected revenue, with required fields present and internally consistent (e.g. SOM <= SAM <= TAM), so the deck's numbers are complete and coherent.
Build Founder Equity Contribution-Factor Ledger
A structured ledger that records, per founder, each equity-adjustment factor applied (initiator, idea, beachhead, CEO, full-time, reputation, cash), the points added, and a justification, ending in final share counts and ownership percentages, so the split is defensible line by line.
Build Notes-vs-Priced Financing Decision Register
A structured decision register that scores convertible-note versus priced-round across every factor the book names (cost, speed, resolution, investor protections, misalignment, confusion, control, investor preference) plus the two easy-case flags, ending in a single recommended instrument with per-factor rationale.
Build 83(b) Election and Capital-Gains-Clock Register
A structured compliance register listing every founder with restricted stock, their 83(b) filing deadline (incorporation date + 30 days), filing status, mailing-proof reference, and a days-remaining / overdue flag, so no founder misses the irrecoverable window.
Build Weighted Founder Idea-Selection Matrix
A structured decision matrix that rates each candidate idea against weighted virtue criteria, computes the weighted score (SUMPRODUCT of weights and scores) per idea, and ranks them, so founders pick a direction on stated criteria instead of gut feel.
AIaaS Productization Decision Register
A founder deciding which of their internal AI models to package and sell as AIaaS gets a defensible, rule-derived register that says Go / Go-with-notes / Stop per model and names the single best candidate to commercialize.
SETDA AI Outcome Discovery Register
A product team running AI discovery gets a structured register of candidate AI outcomes, each correctly categorized (revenue / cost / risk) and mapped to a Sense/Explain/Think/Decide/Act method, with needs and requirements broken out per the SETDA framework.
AIaaS Lean Canvas with Templated Pitch
A founder productizing an AI model as a service gets a complete, structured AIaaS lean canvas plus a ready elevator pitch in the book's exact format, with no empty fields and a valid deployment mode.
Assess Startup Lifecycle Stage Exit Readiness
The founder gets a structured readiness assessment that scores their startup against the named exit criteria for their current stage (Idea/MVP/Launch/Scale), surfacing which gates are met with evidence and which are blocking, so the stage-transition decision is reasoned rather than an act of faith.
Build an AI Coding Session Brief and Context File
The founder gets a structured session-brief template plus a populated project-context document so each AI coding session executes against fixed architectural guardrails and logs what it changed, preventing the compounding drift the book warns about.
Build an MVP Scope Boundary Contract
The founder gets a structured scope contract that locks the MVP boundary in advance, so zero-friction scope creep is gated by a written evidence test for every excluded feature rather than founder enthusiasm.
Build a Pre-Launch PMF Threshold Register
The founder gets a structured PMF threshold register that fixes the metrics, their pass thresholds, and the false-positive traps in advance, so the later PMF call is measured against pre-committed bars instead of post-hoc rationalization.
Build a Founder Operational Load and Delegation Register
The founder gets a structured operational-load register that classifies every routed task by delegation tier and flags the ones that stall in a founder's week-long absence, turning 'I do everything' into a triaged plan for what to systematize, delegate, or keep.
Build an Enterprise Procurement Readiness Gap Register
The founder gets a structured procurement-readiness register that lists each expected enterprise artifact (docs, SLAs, support infra, controls), its present/partial/missing status, and a remediation order, so the work to satisfy a procurement review is sequenced before the contract stalls on it.
Build a Workflow Lock-In and Switching-Cost Register
The founder gets a structured lock-in register that documents, per top customer, the automations / integrations / team-workflows running through the product plus a switching-cost estimate and an integration-depth tier, surfacing where the product is embedded and where it needs to go deeper.
Build a Technical Debt Remediation Sequence Register
The founder gets a structured remediation register that buckets each debt item into fix-before-release / parallel-with-features / acceptable-ongoing, tags its weakness type, and orders the must-fix set, turning a flat audit list into a sequenced remediation plan.
Build a Compliance Control and Evidence Register
The founder gets a structured control register that maps each required control to its framework, the evidence artifact that satisfies it, its present/missing status, and an owner, so the documentation and controls needed to pass a compliance review are enumerated and tracked rather than improvised.
Build Startup Compliance Obligation Register
A founder-acting-as-CFO receives a structured register of recurring compliance obligations across corporate, tax, contract, IP, and employment law, each with a cadence and due date, so nothing lapses.
Screen Startup Against Incubator/Accelerator Eligibility Criteria
A founder receives a structured eligibility screen showing, criterion by criterion, whether the startup qualifies for a given incubator or accelerator program and whether it clears the overall gate.
Score Problem Candidates on the Ikigai Four-Lens Fit
A founder receives a structured four-lens score for each candidate problem and a shortlist of those that clear every lens, so they pick a problem to focus on rather than a buzzword.
Build a Head-Hand-Heart Talent Remuneration Package
An early-stage founder receives a structured offer that pairs ESOPs and tax-aware cash with explicit psychological motivators, so they can compete for talent they cannot out-pay on salary alone.
Build a Discovery-Driven Assumptions Checklist for a New Venture
A structured discovery-driven planning register: the required financial targets stated up front, then a rank-ordered assumptions checklist where every assumption has a test, a cost, and a kill/continue trigger, per Christensen's reversed four-step method.
Assess a Foothold Against the Four-Element Nonconsumption Pattern
A structured foothold-fit assessment that records, for each of Christensen's four elements of the nonconsumption pattern, the buyer's claim, supporting evidence, and a pass/partial/fail mark, with an aggregate fit verdict computed by rule.
Build a Three-Approaches-to-Growth Strategy Spec
A structured strategy spec that captures all three of Christensen's growth approaches across the three Table 2-1 dimensions, with each cell filled and internally consistent with that approach's definition.
Build a Jobs-vs-Attributes Market Segmentation Map
A structured circumstance-based segmentation map: a set of jobs-to-be-done, each tagged with the functional/emotional/social dimension, the circumstance, and the competing-alternatives set (which must include a nonconsumption option), explicitly contrasted against the rejected attribute-based segments.
Build a Threat-to-Opportunity Framing Transition Plan
A structured two-phase framing plan per Gilbert's threat-then-opportunity model: Phase 1 threat framing housed in the core to secure resources, a named handoff trigger, then Phase 2 opportunity framing in an autonomous unit with enumerated independence dimensions.
Build a Performance-Overshoot and Basis-of-Competition Register
A structured overshoot register: one row per market tier recording demanded vs delivered performance, an overshoot verdict, and the predicted next basis of competition, computed by rule from the numbers the buyer supplies.
Compute Break-Even Point and Margin of Safety
A founder learns the exact unit and revenue break-even point so they can judge whether the required sales volume is achievable before fixed costs are recovered.
Compute Viral Coefficient and Loop-Driven User Growth
A founder learns their viral K-factor and the cumulative users a seed cohort generates across viral cycles, so they can judge whether the product can grow on the viral engine alone.
Compute Founder Personal Runway and Go-Full-Time Verdict
A bootstrapping founder learns how many months of personal runway they have and whether it clears the book's full-time-go thresholds, so they can decide whether to quit their job now or stay part-time.
Project a Weekly Growth-Target Schedule
A pure function that, given a starting metric value, a weekly growth rate, and a number of weeks, returns the compounded target for each week and the final value, mirroring the YC forward-looking growth graph practice.
Compute Raise Amount and Implied Valuation from Inflection Point
A single headline raise number, the implied post-money valuation range, the investor ownership range it implies, and a flag for whether the ask sits inside the track-record-appropriate band, so the founder can answer 'how much are you raising?' with one defensible figure.
Compute an add-on price as percent-of-base with floor and cap
I give a base ACV, a percentage, a floor and a cap, and get the add-on price = clamp(pct * baseACV, floor, cap), so the add-on scales with customer size but stays bounded.
Compute Default Alive or Default Dead
A pure function that, given current cash, monthly expenses, monthly revenue, and monthly revenue growth rate, returns whether the company reaches profitability before cash runs out (default alive) or not (default dead), the crossover month, and the lowest cash point.
Compute Equity for a Founder's Cash Contribution
The extra ownership percentage a founder earns by putting cash into the company beyond their labor, priced off the agreed pre-seed valuation, plus the resulting post-contribution ownership split, so the founders can settle IOUs before financing.
Compute New-Hire Equity Grant by Hire Number
A pure function that returns the equity-grant percentage for the Nth early hire by interpolating between configurable anchor grants (default 1.5% for hire #1, 0.25% for hire #20), per the YC early-hire equity rule of thumb.
Classify whether to publish prices using the market 2x2
I give market size and homogeneity (with thresholds) and get the quadrant plus the publish-on-website recommendation, matching the book's transparency 2x2.
Classify Burn-Rate Danger Level
A pure function that converts monthly burn and cash on hand into months of runway and a danger classification using runway-month thresholds, per Altman's rule that burn is only scary when runway is short.
Classify an Innovation with the Three Disruption Litmus Tests
A deterministic function that takes the five disruption-test answers for an innovation and returns its disruption class (new-market, low-end, both, sustaining, or not-disruptable) plus which tests it passed, exactly per Christensen's three litmus tests.
Classify Capital Character: Patient/Impatient for Growth vs Profit
A deterministic function mapping a venture's funding terms onto Christensen's two-axis capital-character model and returning whether the capital is good or bad for a new-market disruption, with the quadrant label.
Route a Founder Task to the Right Claude Surface
The founder gets a pure routing function that takes a task's structured attributes and returns the correct Claude surface, applying the book's surface-selection logic deterministically across any list of tasks.
Diagnose the Fatal Pinch
A pure function that classifies a startup against Paul Graham's fatal-pinch definition: default-dead AND slow growth AND not enough time, returning the overall verdict and which of the three conditions are true.
In-House Build-vs-Buy Tendency Scorer
A founder weighing whether to sell an AI capability as a service gets a 0-6 in-house-tendency score and a build/buy verdict per the book's exact criteria, flagging capabilities customers will just build themselves.
AI Use-Case Technical Feasibility Scorer
A non-technical founder gets a defensible 1-4 score on each of the five technical-feasibility dimensions and an average, derived purely from yes/no characterizations of the use case, with no hand-waving.
Compute Cofounder vs Employee Cash-and-Equity Cost
A side-by-side of cash burned and equity given for filling a role as a cofounder versus an employee over the runway window, plus the company valuation at which the cofounder's extra equity costs more than the cash saved, so the founder can decide which is economically cheaper.
Compute Founder Vesting Acceleration Payout on Change of Control
A precise breakdown of how many founder shares vest at a change-of-control event under the grant's acceleration terms, so the founder knows their stake before signing.
Compute Founder Share Repurchase on Departure
A precise vested-vs-repurchasable share split when a founder leaves before fully vesting, plus the cash the company pays under the repurchase agreement, so the cap table can be corrected.
Compute the Van Westendorp acceptable price range
I enter each respondent's four price answers and get back the deterministic Van Westendorp points (PMC, PME, OPP, IPP) on the observed price grid, so I have a defensible acceptable-price band.
Compute the bill under a linear, 2-part, or 3-part tariff
I give a usage volume and a tariff schedule and get the exact amount owed, with the right block selected and overage applied only above included units.
Rank product features with a collaborative weighted scorecard
A product team prioritizing a roadmap gets each feature's weighted value, cost normalized to the most expensive feature, absolute value, and a deterministic rank, computed exactly per the CWS formula.
Score AI model process and tool maturity into bands
A team assessing whether an AI model is mature enough to sell as a service gets a process-maturity band and a tool/system-maturity band computed directly from per-phase level scores, ready to feed the AIaaS feasibility decision.
Score an AI idea's business feasibility on 1-4 scales
A founder comparing AI product ideas gets a defensible 1-4 score on each business-feasibility dimension and an average, derived from concrete inputs (SOM, usage cadence, validation %, scalability), so ideas can be ranked on a like-for-like basis.
Compute a proportional token allocation from contribution scores
Each contributor's token allocation = round(contributionScore / sumAllScores * totalPool, 2), and the sum of all allocations equals totalPool within tolerance.
Compare gig-platform fees and net earnings
For each platform entry: netEarnings = round(grossEarnings * (1 - feeRatePct/100), 2); feeAmount = round(grossEarnings * feeRatePct/100, 2); winner flag on the highest-net platform.
Also part of this playbook, opening soon:
- Work out how long my money lasts
- Lay out my business model