Venture pitch builder

Venture Pitch Builder

This skill produces two linked things from a startup idea: (1) a clear, research-backed strategy grounded in the Bling Capital Diligence Playbook, and (2) a living Vite + React pitch/diligence deck — a multi-tab web app whose numbers are computed from one model, so the founder can tune an assumption and watch the whole deck update.

The methodology is in references/bling-playbook.md — read it before mapping research into the model. A complete, known-good worked example is in assets/reference-app/ — that is the canonical structure to copy and re-theme, not rebuild from scratch.

Work conversationally throughout. This is a collaboration about the founder's business, not a one-shot generator. Float the strategy, let them push back, then build.

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Step 0 — Interview the founder (before any research)

The idea as stated is almost always underspecified, and the research is only as good as the framing. Ask 2-3 short shaping questions with the AskUserQuestion tool before researching. Pick the questions that matter most for this idea; good candidates:

• Who's the customer / who pays? (the buyer — B2B org, SMB, consumer, marketplace supply side…)
• Target market & geography (e.g. US SMBs, EU mid-market, global developers).
• Stage & purpose (pre-seed / seed / Series A; raising vs. company-building; rough raise size).
• Business model if unclear (SaaS subscription, marketplace take-rate, transactional, usage…).
• What's already real (live product? early revenue? just an idea?) — this shapes the Traction tab.

Keep it light — offer concrete options, let them free-text. Weave the answers into the research query and the model. If the user already gave rich detail, ask fewer questions (or just confirm scope).

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Step 1 — Delegate the research to the deep-research skill

Invoke the deep-research skill (via the Skill tool) with a single, well-framed query built from the idea + interview answers. Frame it around the facts the Bling exercises need, so the report comes back diligence-ready. Ask it to find, with sources:

• Market size & supply count — how many prospective customers exist (the bottoms-up denominator), plus top-down industry spend for context only. Prefer counts of customers/venues/companies over a single TAM dollar figure.
• Segmentation reality — what natural segments exist (by size / vertical / geography / type), and roughly how many customers per segment.
• Pricing & willingness to pay — what customers pay today for this pain; typical ACV / order value; whether budget already exists.
• Competitors & incumbents — who solves this today, their model, and their take rate / pricing (this anchors the "10x better" and "why we win" claims).
• Broader trends — tailwinds that expand the market over the next 5-10 years.

If the deep-research skill is unavailable for any reason, fall back to running web searches (WebSearch / web_fetch) yourself against the same checklist — but prefer delegating.

While research runs, you can draft the strategy skeleton from the interview answers.

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Step 2 — Map findings into the Bling model

Read references/bling-playbook.md, then turn the research into the four exercises. Do the math explicitly before touching code — these become the constants in the app's data/ files:

1. Hair-on-fire + 10x — buyer (and user, if different); the urgent problem in their voice; the step-by-step today flow and tomorrow flow; a quantified 10x.
2. Segmentation — one MECE axis, named segments with real reference customers, count per segment, price/ACV and gross margin per segment.
3. Market sizing — per-customer gross profit; the model-unit expansion path; the mad-libs: X customers at $Y = K% of the pool to reach $100M gross profit; then the $500M story.
4. D+ financial model — scenarios, hiring plan by month, phased burn, runway, and the raise right-sized to the cash trough.

Share this strategy with the founder in chat (concise prose, the key numbers and the mad-libs) and invite corrections before building. Their domain knowledge will sharpen the assumptions.

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Step 3 — Build the living deck from the reference app

Copy the reference app into the user's working folder under a project-appropriate name, then re-theme and refill it — don't regenerate the scaffolding. The architecture, build config, responsive CSS, shared components, and the computed-model pattern all transfer directly; only brand, data, and copy change.

cp -r <skill>/assets/reference-app  <workspace>/<company>-pitch
cd <workspace>/<company>-pitch

Then edit, in this order:

1. src/data/brand.js — name, tagline, one-line description, market, contact, date.
2. src/data/colors.js — re-theme to the company's palette (keep the token names; just change the hex values). Match the real brand if a site exists.
3. index.html — title and the Google Font (the reference uses Montserrat; swap if desired).
4. src/data/market.js — the live market-sizing model: supply denominator (CORE_MARKET / EXPANDED_MARKET), per-customer economics, the SEGMENTS definitions, penetration, and the $100M/$500M path functions. Keep the exported function names (buildPath, customersForGP, customerGrossProfit, GROSS_MARGIN, …) so the tabs keep working; change the numbers and segment definitions. The example is a B2B SaaS segmented by company size — re-shape it for a marketplace (segment by geography/tier), transactional, or usage model as needed.
5. src/data/financials.js — scenarios, pricing/ACV by segment, opex, hiring plan, and phased burn. Re-derive buildProjections, fundingNeed, and revenueMix for the business model at hand — the example uses seats/ACV per segment, but the structure is a guide, not a straitjacket.
6. src/data/refs.js — every figure cited inline as [n], with the real sources from research, plus the methodology note.
7. src/App.jsx — header name/logo/badges and, if needed, the tab list. Twelve tabs ship by default; rename, drop, or add tabs to fit the business (e.g. a "Team" tab).
8. src/tabs/*.jsx — rewrite the content of each tab from the researched, founder-confirmed strategy. The tab→exercise map is in the reference table in bling-playbook.md. Keep the visual components (H2, InfoCard, FlowStep, SectionNote, Tag, StatCard) from components/Shared.jsx; they're generic.

Principles that make the deck good (the same ones the reference app embodies):

• Numbers are computed, not hard-coded into tabs — tabs import from data/ so one assumption change ripples everywhere. Resist pasting literal figures into JSX.
• Be honest. Mark estimates as estimates, show a "read before using these numbers" note where the reference does, and cite real sources. Investors trust clear, evolving plans over polished fiction.
• Gross profit, not GMV. Keep penetration assumptions believable (single-digit to low-double-digit %).

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Step 4 — Install, build, verify, present

cd <workspace>/<company>-pitch
npm install
npm run build      # must succeed — fix any errors before presenting
npm run dev        # for the founder to view locally (print the localhost URL)

A successful npm run build is the verification gate: it catches missing imports, renamed exports, and JSX errors. Then tell the founder how to run it (npm run dev), and present the key files / the strategy summary. Because the model is live, invite them to tune the assumptions in data/financials.js and data/market.js — and offer to make changes with them. Keep iterating conversationally: this deck is a living document.