validate-opportunitylisted

# Validate Opportunity Stress-test a business idea against reality before spending money on it. ## What this skill tests (in order) 1. **The customer exists**: who specifically buys this? (name a real person, not a demographic) 2. **The problem is real**: what pain does this solve? How do they solve it today? 3. **The demand is measurable**: how many potential customers are within reach? 4. **The competition is known**: who else serves this customer? What is the honest gap? 5. **Willingness to pay**: what would they pay? (test with a pre-sale, a waitlist, or a pop-up) 6. **The venue question**: where will the evidence actually come from? (a rigorous gate with no admissible path is worse than no gate) ## The output A one-page verdict: - **PROCEED**: assumptions are credible enough to plan - **CONDITIONAL**: proceed IF [named conditions] are met first - **STOP**: the idea does not survive contact with reality, and here is why ## Gate design rules - **Floors, not AND-gates**: 3-5 metrics with minimum thresholds, not 9 things that must ALL pass - **One ungameable metric**: third-party POS receipts, not self-reported interest - **Novelty period excluded**: first 14 days do not count toward primary data - **Family/friends do not count**: track surname as a % of total (15% or less is healthy) - **The venue question must be answered BEFORE designing the test** ## What this skill does NOT do - It does not write a business plan (plan-business) - It does not size TAM/SAM/SOM (it