StartupENGINEERING
All decision skills
Decision skill · FreeProblem Loop

Do you need to build anything yet?

Do you need to build anything yet — or can you test demand without writing code?

Download the skill

Version 1.0 · Plain text · No email required · CC BY-SA 4.0

What this skill does

Hand this file to Claude or ChatGPT. The assistant interviews you, one question at a time, through this decision's determining questions — on your specifics. It then applies the decision rules to your answers and gives you the recommendation plainly, with the conditions under which it would change.

The decision it executes
Do you need to build anything yet? →

The cheapest tests that produce a real demand signal, what each one can and can't prove, and the point at which not building becomes the expensive choice.

The guide is the canonical version: determining questions, paths with dated costs, what I'd do, and limits. It belongs to The Problem Loop.

Escalation clause
An honest tool knows its edges.

This decision stops being self-serve — and needs a human with scars in the room — when:

  • The product depends on network effects (marketplace, social) and no niche or geography is small enough to serve concierge-style — the test is the product, and build-first risk needs expert pricing.
  • The domain is regulated (lending, insurance, medical diagnosis or similar) and manual delivery of the outcome would be illegal without licenses.
  • This is deep tech where the real risk is feasibility, not demand — the right first step is a technical spike, and demand tests answer the wrong question.
When this skill revises
Optional. The download never depends on it.

Skill revisions and cost updates are announced in the newsletter.