Solo Founder Skills

Expert skills for non-technical founders building SaaS with AI tools (Claude Code, Lovable, Replit, Cursor).

Covers the full lifecycle of planning, building, launching, and growing a software business — actionable guides, checklists, and copy-paste prompts. The skills ship as 10 focused plugins, so you install only what you need.

Installation

Note: These skills use the Agent Skills open format, so they work in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot and other agents that read it. Only the install step differs. Claude Code and Cursor have built-in plugin marketplaces. Everything else uses install.sh.

Install the plugins you need, not all of them. Agents load every installed skill's name and description at startup. Codex caps that list at 2% of the model's context window, or 8,000 characters when it cannot tell — past the cap it shortens descriptions and can leave skills out. All 61 skills total about 25,000 characters. Any single plugin fits comfortably.

Claude Code (via Plugin Marketplace)

Register the marketplace, then install sf-core first:

/plugin marketplace add whawkinsiv/solo-founder-skills
/plugin install sf-core@solo-founder-skills-marketplace

sf-core holds the journey and next skills. They tell you which plugin to install for each step.

Then install the plugins for the work you are doing now:

Why separate plugins? Claude Code loads the description of every installed skill into every session. Fewer installed skills means less context used and fewer wrong skills competing for the same request.

Upgrading from the single solo-founder-skills plugin

Version 3 was one plugin with every skill in it. That plugin no longer exists. Remove it, refresh the marketplace, then install the plugins you want:

/plugin uninstall solo-founder-skills@solo-founder-skills-marketplace
/plugin marketplace update solo-founder-skills-marketplace
/plugin install sf-core@solo-founder-skills-marketplace

Manual skill invocations changed. Replace /solo-founder-skills:plan with /sf-strategy:plan. The table under "What's Inside" shows the plugin for each skill.

Upgrading from Solo Founder Superpowers

Remove the old install and the old marketplace first, then follow the install steps above:

/plugin uninstall solo-founder-superpowers@solo-founder-superpowers-marketplace
/plugin marketplace remove solo-founder-superpowers-marketplace

Cursor (via Plugin Marketplace)

In Cursor Agent chat, install from marketplace:

/plugin-add solo-founder-skills

Codex

Codex reads personal skills from ~/.codex/skills/ and project skills from .codex/skills/ and .agents/skills/. Clone the repo, then run install.sh with the plugins you want:

git clone https://github.com/whawkinsiv/solo-founder-skills.git
cd solo-founder-skills
./install.sh --list                          # see the plugins
./install.sh --codex sf-core sf-strategy     # into ~/.codex/skills/

Use --agents instead to install into ./.agents/skills/ in the current project.

The script prints the startup description cost and warns you when it goes over the cap. Add plugins as you need them — run it again with more names.

To install one skill only, use the built-in installer:

$skill-installer install https://github.com/whawkinsiv/solo-founder-skills/tree/main/plugins/sf-build/skills/build

Restart Codex after installing. Invoke skills with $skill-name or let Codex select them automatically.

OpenCode and other agents

OpenCode reads skills from .opencode/skills/, ~/.config/opencode/skills/, or ~/.agents/skills/. Point install.sh at whichever one you use:

git clone https://github.com/whawkinsiv/solo-founder-skills.git
cd solo-founder-skills
./install.sh --dest .opencode/skills sf-core sf-strategy

--dest takes any path, so the same command works for any agent that reads a folder of skills. Skills load on demand: the agent sees their names and descriptions, and reads the full instructions only when it picks one.

Verify Installation

Start a new session in your chosen platform and ask for something that should trigger a skill (for example, "where do I start?" or "help me plan this feature"). The agent should automatically invoke the relevant skill.

What's Inside

sf-core — Start here (6 skills)

sf-strategy — Strategy & Validation (8 skills)

sf-design — Design & UX (6 skills)

sf-build — Build (7 skills)

sf-ship — Ship & Operate (7 skills)

sf-copy — Copy (4 skills)

sf-seo — SEO (4 skills)

sf-channels — Channels (6 skills)

sf-customers — Customers (6 skills)

sf-business — Business & Money (6 skills)

Commands

How to Use

Skills are invoked automatically when Claude Code detects a relevant request, or manually with /<plugin>:<skill>:

/sf-strategy:plan
/sf-channels:launch
/sf-business:payments

Recommended workflow for a new product

0. Orient    — journey, about-me, glossary
1. Validate  — validate, customer-research, market-research, focus, domain-name
2. Plan      — plan, prioritize, pricing, finances
3. Design    — brand-identity-generator, ux-design, ui-patterns, beautify
4. Build     — build, database, integrations, secure, test, debug
5. Ship      — design-review, go-live, deploy, payments
6. Launch    — launch, landing-page, copywriting, humanize
7. Grow      — growth, content, seo, seo-content, email, ads, social-media
8. Retain    — retention, support, feedback, conversion
9. Scale     — optimize, dry, monitor, analytics, ai-features, hiring

Design Philosophy

These skills assume Claude's intelligence — they focus on:

• Non-technical founder perspective and common mistakes
• Tool selection criteria (when to use Lovable vs Claude Code vs Replit)
• Actionable checklists and "Tell AI:" copy-paste prompts
• What's out of scope (preventing premature optimization)
• Concise, actionable content that avoids explaining concepts Claude already knows

Author

Will Hawkins (@whawkinsiv)

{
  "name": "solo-founder-skills-marketplace",
  "description": "Expert skills for non-technical founders building SaaS with AI tools, in 10 focused plugins. Install sf-core first.",
  "owner": {
    "name": "Will Hawkins"
  },
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "sf-core",
      "description": "Start here. Orientation and routing for non-technical founders building SaaS with AI tools: where to start, what to do next, whether a task is worth your time, what to build first, founder voice setup, and plain-English definitions of technical terms.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-core",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-strategy",
      "description": "Turn an idea into a buildable spec: translate professional expertise into a product, validate demand before building, decide whether the idea needs to be an app at all, customer and market research, niche advantage, naming and domain selection, and feature specs AI tools can execute.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-strategy",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-design",
      "description": "Make an AI-built SaaS look and feel professional: brand identity, UX flows, UI patterns, visual polish, motion, and a design review quality gate.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-design",
      "category": "design",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-build",
      "description": "Build and fix SaaS features with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Lovable, Replit, Cursor): tool selection, database design, integrations, LLM features, debugging, deduplication, and performance.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-build",
      "category": "development",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-ship",
      "description": "Get a SaaS app live and keep it up: testing, security, regulatory compliance, a go/no-go launch checklist, deployment, production monitoring, and analytics.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-ship",
      "category": "deployment",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-copy",
      "description": "Write the words for a SaaS product: UI copy and CTAs, long-form founder prose, landing pages, and removing AI writing patterns so copy reads as human-written.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-copy",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-seo",
      "description": "Rank in search and get cited by AI: SEO strategy and keyword planning, SEO content writing, codebase SEO audits, and technical SEO.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-seo",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-channels",
      "description": "Reach people: product launches, content strategy, social media, lifecycle and branded email, paid ads, and community building for bootstrapped SaaS.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-channels",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-customers",
      "description": "Win and keep customers: product-led growth, conversion optimization, retention and churn, founder-led sales, customer support, and feedback loops.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-customers",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-business",
      "description": "Run the company: pricing, Stripe payments and billing, financial models and unit economics, bookkeeping and taxes, legal setup, and hiring technical help.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-business",
      "category": "productivity",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "sf-dev",
      "description": "Tools for skill authors: measure whether a Claude Code skill works and improve it through A/B evaluation.",
      "source": "./plugins/sf-dev",
      "category": "development",
      "author": {
        "name": "Will Hawkins"
      }
    }
  ]
}