Is the Cold Start Problem skill free?

Yes. The skill itself is free from wondelai/skills. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.

What is the Cold Start Problem SkillProof Score?

9.6/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 9/10, docs & honesty 5/5.

How do I install Cold Start Problem?

Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.

Can I use Cold Start Problem with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?

The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.

Cold Start Problem

Andrew Chen's network-effects playbook as a scored launch framework for marketplaces and social apps

by wondelai · wondelai/skills

Tested · Works

Install — copy the command Download source ↗

Test report

Verdict: Tested · Works
Score: 9.6/10
Tested: Jul 20, 2026
Environment: Claude Code 2.x (agent harness)
Upstream re-checked: Aug 10, 2026 · ac44a85

Fetched SKILL.md and all 5 reference files raw from wondelai/skills@main; frontmatter parses with name+description, and every referenced references/*.md file exists in the git tree and is substantive. Grep of skill + all references found no curl|sh, base64, exfil, secrets, or hidden instructions — only 3 disclosed Amazon affiliate tags (tag=wondelai00-20) on Further Reading book links. Trigger phrasings — ACTIVATE: "how do I get the first users for my two-sided marketplace?", "my social app has a chicken-and-egg problem, nobody's posting", "we're launching a marketplace with no buyers or sellers yet"; NOT: "write me a cold email sequence for B2B sales" (cold ≠ cold-start), "how do I improve my landing page conversion rate?" — 5/5 correct, description is well-scoped and cross-references sibling skills to avoid over-triggering.

Scored on four weighted criteria — install, triggering, output vs. baseline, docs. How scoring works

Installs cleanly 5/5
Triggers reliably 5/5
Output vs. baseline 9/10
Docs & honesty 5/5

What Cold Start Problem does

A pure-prompt knowledge skill that turns Andrew Chen's "The Cold Start Problem" into a scored framework for launching and scaling networked products. Triggers on network-effects, marketplace-seeding, chicken-and-egg, and stalled-growth questions, then rates the plan 0-10 and prescribes atomic-network, hard-side, and liquidity-metric fixes.

How to install Cold Start Problem

Copy the cold-start-problem/ directory into .claude/skills/ (or .agents/skills/, etc. — the repo ships all five agent variants). Self-contained: SKILL.md plus 5 reference markdown files, no external CLI, MCP, or runtime required.

Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ (per-project). Restart Claude Code after installing.

Commands — how to trigger Cold Start Problem

/cold-start-problem Andrew Chen's network-effects playbook as a scored launch framework for marketplaces and social apps

It also activates on plain-language prompts like these:

Help me solve the chicken-and-egg problem for launch
Plan seeding tactics for our two-sided marketplace
Diagnose why our marketplace growth has stalled

Frequently asked questions

Is the Cold Start Problem skill free?: Yes. The skill itself is free from wondelai/skills. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.
Does Cold Start Problem work with Claude Code?: We tested it with Claude Code 2.x (agent harness) on Jul 20, 2026. Verdict: Tested · Works. Fetched SKILL.md and all 5 reference files raw from wondelai/skills@main; frontmatter parses with name+description, and every referenced references/*.md file exists in the git tree and is substantive. Grep of skill + all references found no curl|sh, base64, exfil, secrets, or hidden instructions — only 3 disclosed Amazon affiliate tags (tag=wondelai00-20) on Further Reading book links. Trigger phrasings — ACTIVATE: "how do I get the first users for my two-sided marketplace?", "my social app has a chicken-and-egg problem, nobody's posting", "we're launching a marketplace with no buyers or sellers yet"; NOT: "write me a cold email sequence for B2B sales" (cold ≠ cold-start), "how do I improve my landing page conversion rate?" — 5/5 correct, description is well-scoped and cross-references sibling skills to avoid over-triggering.
What is the Cold Start Problem SkillProof Score?: 9.6/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 9/10, docs & honesty 5/5.
How do I install Cold Start Problem?: Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.
Can I use Cold Start Problem with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?: The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.