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name: founder-pricing description: >- Finds the price buyers will actually pay. Reads the consumer panel's four price answers per buyer into a Van Westendorp price-sensitivity range (too cheap, a bargain, getting expensive, too expensive), sets it against what competitors really charge and against the CFO's margin, and recommends a price, a price ladder (good / better / best) and an opening offer to test. Use when the user says "how much should I charge", "price this", "is $X too expensive", "pricing strategy", "what price", or after the consumer panel. argument-hint: "[current price]"

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.