Your founder toolkit.
Bring the next step into focus.
Three practical checklists you can read, print, or keep with your project notes. No signup, no forms, and no pretend productivity dashboard.
Founder preflight
Before a prototype becomes a commitment.
Problem
Name the user, task, recurring difficulty, and consequence. Write one observation that could show your assumption is wrong.
Current alternative
Describe how the work happens today, including manual steps and doing nothing. Note what already works well.
Buyer and user
Identify who uses the product, who approves a test, and who controls a purchase. Do not assume they are the same person.
Evidence
Mark every important statement as observed, reported, or assumed. Keep contradictory observations in the record.
Pilot boundary
Define participants, duration, permitted data, support, success measures, and stopping conditions.
Next decision
Agree on what evidence supports continuing, changing direction, or stopping. Set the review before starting the test.
AI pilot brief
One task, one baseline, one accountable experiment.
Task and exclusions
Describe the output and the user who checks it. List consequential decisions or actions the pilot will not perform.
Baseline
Write down the manual, search-based, or rules-based alternative used for comparison.
Approved information
Record data ownership, intended uses, permitted recipients, and review responsibilities. Use synthetic data until the path is approved.
Evaluation set
Prepare representative Arabic, English, ambiguous, and unsupported requests. Keep development and final evaluation material separate.
Controls and recovery
Bound tool permissions, define human review, and specify what happens when evidence is missing, a provider fails, or costs rise.
Results and decision
Record task quality, correction effort, cost, limitations, and the next proposed scope. Do not move the acceptance threshold after seeing results.
Technical release review
Check the paths outside the demonstration.
Scope and truthfulness
Every control should do what its label promises. Remove pretend account, payment, search, or submission features.
Devices and access
Test narrow and wide viewports, keyboard use, increased text size, image loading, and menu dismissal.
Language
Review language, direction, terminology, mixed-script identifiers, and error recovery across the complete task.
Information handling
Trace collection, access, vendors, copies, and retention. Have the appropriate specialists review applicable obligations.
Recovery
Test backups, deployment recovery, error handling, and the response to an unavailable dependency.
Documentation
Give another person working setup instructions, known limitations, an owner for operations, and a clear change record.