stage-maplisted

# Stage map — where you actually are, and what that stage demands The lifecycle from *The Founder's Playbook: Building an AI-Native Startup* (Anthropic, 2026). Four stages, each with one goal, one exit condition, and a characteristic set of ways founders get it wrong. The premise: AI erased the assumption that each new phase requires a bigger team, a different skill set, and a fresh funding round. The founder's job shifts from individual contributor to orchestrator. What didn't change is the sequence — and the most expensive mistake in the AI era is running a stage ahead of the evidence. ## Diagnose before advising Founders routinely self-report a stage ahead of where their evidence puts them, because building is now so cheap that the *artifacts* of a later stage appear long before its *evidence* does. Diagnose from exit criteria, not from what exists. Ask (batch these, don't interrogate): 1. Have you talked to people with this problem who aren't friends or investors? How many? 2. Is anything shipped, and does anyone outside your circle use it? 3. Do users come back unprompted — without you nudging them? 4. Is anyone paying? Do you know your CAC, LTV, and payback period? 5. What are you personally doing every day right now? Then place them by **the last exit condition genuinely met**, and say so plainly when that's earlier than they assumed. Having a working product does not make someone MVP-stage; having *evidence* does. ## The four stages ### Idea — "Is this worth b