Before
Dog training app for first-time puppy owners
After
CDog training app for first-time puppy owners for a narrow first customer segment, packaged as a four-week V1 with one measurable pain, one acquisition channel, and a clear month-six success target.
Per-question score table
Who is this for, very specifically?
No user named, no role, no situation — just vague optimism about the idea.
What pain are they paying for today?
No pain, no workaround, no dollar amount, no wasted hours — nothing testable.
Why now? What changed in the world?
No trigger, no shift, no trend — zero reason this couldn't have been built in 2015.
What's the V1 you can build in 4 weeks?
No scope, no feature, no wedge — nothing a developer could start Monday.
How will you reach the first 100 users?
No channel, no message, no first conversation — just a placeholder phrase.
What does success look like at month 6?
No metric, no number, no milestone — nothing that could be passed or failed.
Homework
Three concrete next steps before you run the next session.
- 1Interview 5 people in the exact customer segment and write down the words they use for the painful workflow.
- 2Build a clickable V1 outline that solves only the highest-friction step from those interviews.
- 3Send one concise outreach message to 20 likely first users and measure replies, not likes.
What founders say about gstack
“gstack's forcing questions are sharper than most advisors I have paid for.”
@founder_a
“Used this to pressure-test our YC application. We got in.”
@yc_alum_b
“58K GitHub stars for a reason. The framework is legit.”
@indie_dev_c
“It saved me from building the wrong thing. Twice.”
@pm_dana
Your next step
Apply to YC
- 1.5% acceptance rate
- 3 to 6 months until the next batch
- One idea reviewed
- Weeks to hear back
Go Pro
- Start today, no waiting
- 10 idea evals every month
- Full results in 5 minutes
- Private sessions and history
$19 / month
Applying to YC is still worth it. Use Pro to sharpen the idea before you do.
Go Pro
$19/month for 10 Full Sessions, private results, session history, and homework follow-up emails.
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Research this idea →
5-axis market analysis in Garry's voice
Brainstorm variations →
6-angle idea expansion