founder-pricing

founder-pricing

Price is the fastest lever on the margin and the one founders guess most. This skill sets it from three things you can check: what buyers said, what competitors charge, and what the business needs to earn.

Tool in this folder:

python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/van_westendorp.py" founder/panel/answers --price 6.50 --out founder/pricing-curve.md

Step 1: what buyers said

If /founder-consumer ran, every buyer answered four price questions. Run the tool on founder/panel/answers (or a CSV with the columns too_cheap, cheap, expensive, too_expensive from real surveys, which beat simulated answers every time). It reports:

point	meaning
PMC	below this, too many think it is too cheap to be good
OPP	the price with the least resistance either way
IPP	where as many call it a bargain as call it expensive
PME	above this, too many will not buy at all

PMC to PME is the acceptable range. If the panel has not run, say so and offer to run /founder-consumer --quick first. Do not invent a range.

Step 2: what competitors charge

From founder/competitors.md (or look them up now, from their own public price pages, with links): the price of the nearest substitutes for the same job. Note what each price includes, so you compare like with like. A matcha latte is compared with other matcha lattes and with the coffee it replaces, not with a tea bag.

Step 3: what the business needs

From founder/numbers.json: the variable cost per unit and the break-even. Run the CFO's tool at two or three candidate prices to see the margin and break-even at each:

python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../founder-cfo/unit_economics.py" founder/numbers.json --price 7.00

Step 4: decide

Write founder/pricing.md:

1. The price, and why: where it sits in the acceptable range, against the competitors, and the margin it gives (from the tool, not a guess).
2. The ladder, if the business can have one: a good / better / best (size, bundle, subscription, membership) with a reason to step up each rung.
3. The opening offer: an intro price or bonus for launch that does not train buyers to wait for discounts, with an end date.
4. What to test with real buyers: two prices inside the range and how to test them (two landing pages, a pre-sale at each, A/B on the menu board).
5. The panel's verbatim price objections (top three), so marketing can answer them.

Rules

• Price answers from simulated buyers pick what to test. They are not proof.
• Never price below variable cost to "buy" customers without saying so, and how long the CFO says the business can afford it.
• No fake anchors: no "was $X" price that was never charged.

Output

founder/pricing-curve.md, founder/pricing.md. If the price changed, update founder/numbers.json and re-run /founder-cfo. Next: /founder-offer.