Build your startup with tools that work and a board that thinks along.

A few quick either/or questions about your own idea, asked by your co-founder in the chat — tap or type, and see your idea take shape.

• Your idea in one line, from your own answers
• The forks you have already picked a side on
• The one thing worth finding out first

Sketch the goals that steer everything — personal, business, customer and impact — and turn them into a shareable cover story.

• A four-lens goal map: personal, business, customer and impact
• A shareable cover story — an editorial cover and article you can post or send on

Place the technology on the TRL scale with the evidence behind it, and name the next technical proof worth chasing.

• Your technology placed on the TRL scale, 1 to 9
• The evidence that placement rests on
• The next technical proof, ready to go on the Workboard

Write down what you are assuming about your idea, box by box on the Social Lean Canvas — what your other tools already say, and everything still unspoken.

• Your idea on one canvas, from problem to impact
• The assumptions behind each part, written down
• A list to test against, once you talk to customers

Think through how your idea changes things, step by step — what you put in, what you do, what it produces, the change for people and the longer-term change — and the SDGs it serves.

• Your impact as a chain, from input to long-term change
• Where the chain jumps, so you can see what it rests on
• The SDGs your impact could serve

Put your founding team on one page: who owns what, how you decide and break a tie, the equity and its vesting, and the values, rules and risks of working together.

• One responsibility for each founder
• How you decide, and who breaks a tie
• Where you stand on equity and vesting

Get a first read on the problem before anything else — pick which problem to build on, then sketch who feels it, what they do today, and what others might be missing.

• A problem you chose from several ways of framing it, grounded in a named customer segment
• An honest view of existing alternatives and why they fall short
• A bet on what others miss — and what would show it wrong

Map the forces shaping your market and judge whether now is the time to enter.

• A force board scanning what shapes your market — demographic, economic, political, societal, regulatory and technological
• Each force read as a tailwind or a headwind, and how strongly
• Why now, in one sentence argued from the forces

Work out what is worth protecting, whether it still can be, and the order to do it in — disclosure, filing, freedom to operate and any university licence.

• A first read of where your IP stands, in four steps
• What is worth protecting, and what may already be public
• The next IP step, ready to go on the Workboard

Define and sharpen the core value your product delivers to customers.

• A working Value Proposition Canvas mapping customer jobs, pains and gains
• A crisp value proposition statement you can use in pitches and landing pages
• A gap analysis showing where your product fits and where it still falls short

Map the factors your industry competes on and design a differentiated value curve.

• A strategy canvas showing how you and competitors score on every key factor
• A ERRC grid — what to Eliminate, Reduce, Raise and Create
• A differentiated value curve that points toward space you might carve out

Lay out your product as features and subfeatures — what's built, what's next in your order, and who asked for each — with a co-founder that supports, not leads.

• Your features and subfeatures in your own build order — to build, built, or set aside for later
• Every feature carrying who asked for it — customer requests per segment, kept apart from your own ideas
• A co-founder that suggests candidates and reviews your priorities from the side — you decide what lands

A clickable prototype of the product, built as a real web page from everything the venture already holds — then changed by talking it through, until it is worth putting in front of a customer.

• A clickable prototype in your brand, for desktop or phone, built from your customers, features and pricing
• Say what should change and it changes — small edits in seconds, and every step can be undone
• A page to open full screen, share in an interview or download

The venture's own working app — real pages, forms and a database, live at its own address — built and changed by saying what it should do, until real customers can use it.

• A working app at its own address, with a database of its own
• Say what should change and watch it being built, live
• Every change checked before it is kept, and published when you say so

Design how your venture makes money — revenue streams, the price and packaging, and the unit economics that show it adds up.

• A clear map of your revenue streams and who actually pays for each
• A recommended price and packaging, grounded in the value you deliver
• Light unit economics — ARPU, margin, LTV vs CAC — showing whether a customer pays off

Set what one customer earns against time — when they come, when they pay, what the company costs — and see how long the money lasts and when it breaks even.

• Your runway in months, and the lowest point of your cash
• The month you break even — in cash, and with the team paid
• A plan built on what one customer earns and when they actually come

Decide the one position you could own — your category, target, the alternative you face and your differentiated value — then turn it into messaging you can reuse everywhere.

• A positioning statement: who it's for, the category, and where you'd stand out
• The differentiated value you might credibly claim — and the weakest spot to shore up
• Reusable messaging pillars and copy that flow straight into your pitch

Spin up the right pitch for the moment — a one-liner, 30-second hook, 3-minute pitch, one-pager or social post, auto-assembled from your work and read back to you by a board member.

• A one-liner and 30-second hook you can use in any conversation
• A structured 3-minute pitch and investor-ready one-pager
• Every format auto-assembled from what you have already built in Founderboard

Decide what the venture looks like — a colour palette, a type pairing and a logo — and hold it in one place so everything you send out looks like the same company.

• A palette with named colours and the job each one does, checked for legibility
• A heading and body font pairing, set in everything the venture sends out
• A logo — your own, or a mark generated with you — and how it stands beside the name
• A brand your pitch deck and landing page render in, instead of a template

Make a 30-second film about the venture — pick what it is for and how it looks, shape the story with your board member, and have it made.

• Three stories the film could tell, and the one you pick written out second by second
• A storyboard to check the look before anything is made
• A 30-second film in landscape, vertical or square, to download and use

Stand up a smoke-test landing page and measure whether people actually want what you describe.

• A smoke-test landing page that states the promise clearly
• A real signal of demand from sign-ups or intent

Find real companies that fit who you serve with a live web search, then the people inside them and their work addresses — and hand the ones you keep to an outreach campaign.

• A brief that says which companies to look for, where, and which roles to reach
• A shortlist of real companies from a live search, each with a reason it might fit
• Named people at the companies you keep, with a work address where one can be found

Open partnership and channel conversations and turn the right ones into partners — a pipeline by organisation, your own steps, and always clear whose move it is.

• A pipeline by organisation that says whose move it is, with the thread on each person
• Your own steps from first message to partner, and a funnel that shows where it stalls
• Mutual-value messages written for where each person is, and what their replies ask of you