How to use FounderRoute without guessing.

Use FounderRoute if you are shaping a first idea, validating a product, or already operating a SaaS company. You do not have to begin at Idea. Recommendations are explanations, not orders: you stay in control of the stage and the decision.

Private workspace work stays private until you choose to publish it. For a product tour, see the features page. For legal terms, start with Privacy and Terms.

1. Create an account. Sign up from the home page. Authentication is handled by Clerk.
2. Complete onboarding. Answer from the current state of the company: idea, customers, revenue, team, and time. FounderRoute recommends a stage from those answers. You can accept it or choose a different one.
3. Land on the Founder dashboard. That is the hub for the current startup workspace. Journey work, Memory, ICP Design, Distribution, and Spend Tracker live there; Founder AI and Community have their own areas.
4. Work the current stage. Capture evidence, use AI when it helps, and make a decision at the gate. When you are ready, design the ICP and run one Distribution campaign against it. You can return to an earlier stage when reality changes.

A startup workspace is one company. Free includes one workspace, Founder includes three, Founder Pro includes ten, and Founder Scale includes 25. Switch between workspaces from the signed-in project switcher. Memory storage is shared across the account rather than multiplied per workspace.

ICP Design and Distribution are paid workspaces, opened from the signed-in sidebar. Founder Check-in and Founder Review are optional Momentum tools. Spend Tracker is under ··· → Spend Tracker.

Inside a stage, complete the substages, attach evidence, then use the decision gate. FounderRoute can recommend proceed, refine, or stop. You can disagree. A recommendation is only as good as the context you have given it.

For the product story behind each stage, see Founder stages.

• Add facts yourself, or upload source files for AI to propose facts with citations.
• AI analysis of uploaded files needs your consent. Proposed facts stay proposals until you accept, reject, merge, or replace them.
• Founder AI and later stages read accepted Memory, not every draft in the workspace.
• Memory is private to the workspace. It is not a community profile and is not used to train FounderRoute models.

Do not upload passwords, API keys, payment-card data, government identifiers, health information, or other people’s sensitive data. File size and depth of Memory can differ by plan.

What it is

ICP Design is not a persona template and not a one-line audience field. It is a customer model specific enough to recognize in a conversation, a community, or a customer list: the person, the pain, current behavior, language, attention, buying process, and value boundary. Free includes limited access; Founder, Founder Pro, and Founder Scale include full access.

Open it from the signed-in sidebar. Progress saves as you go. You can leave a question as a draft, jump between questions, and come back later. Buying context (businesses, solo founders, consumers, both, marketplace, or not sure yet) changes examples and buying guidance. It does not change completion.

What you have to know

The core is 20 founder-confirmed answers in five chapters. Each answer can carry an evidence grade: founder belief, personally observed, heard directly, observed behavior, or paying behavior. Stronger grades raise evidence strength. Weaker grades stay visible so the report does not pretend belief is proof.

After the 20 answers, you can add optional customer signals: who actually uses the product, who has paid or asked about pricing, where the strongest users came from, what message converted, the first-value moment, retention behavior, churn reasons, and repeated customer language. Skip any signal you cannot answer honestly. The report will list that limitation.

How it works

The deep AI report uses your answers, optional signals, confirmed Memory, Journey evidence, metrics, decisions, and Distribution learnings. It adds contradictions, product implications, three channel bets, ten content ideas, and a validation experiment. If analysis fails, your answers stay safe. Retry, or open the founder-authored report, which organizes confirmed answers into the same layout without AI inference.

From the report you can save the next experiment to Journey, open a Distribution campaign draft from a channel bet, or create a Studio draft from a content idea. Campaign drafts keep the approved ICP version, so later distribution work stays attached to the customer you actually approved.

What happens when you approve

Approval creates an immutable version. Updating later opens an editable draft and, when you approve again, becomes the next version. For the product story, see ICP Design.

What it is

Distribution is not the old drafting desk of strategy, compose, replies, and a planner. It runs one measurable experiment at a time, using confirmed Startup Memory, the current Journey stage, and the approved ICP when you have one. Open it from the signed-in sidebar. Free includes limited access; Founder, Founder Pro, and Founder Scale include full access.

The point is a useful answer, not more content. A campaign is a hypothesis with a channel bet, a primary metric, a deadline, and execution actions. Today keeps one current action in view so marketing does not become a second to-do list. Learn stays empty until real data exists.

How a cycle works

The parts of the workspace

How it actually runs

Start from Today. If there is no campaign, prepare an AI proposal from Memory and Journey, or build one manually from a template such as first 10 conversations, waitlist, launch week, message test, founder-led content, community, outreach, partnership, or directory launch. Review the proposal before it becomes the live campaign.

Starting a campaign checks readiness. Missing objective, audience, offer, message, hypothesis, deadline, channel bet, metric target, or first action will block the start. If another campaign is already running, pause or review it first. Acquire and Grow campaigns also open a Journey cycle so the distribution hypothesis stays attached to stage evidence.

Audience can be the approved ICP, an experimental override of that ICP, or a custom description. Channel bets cover founder-led content, community, direct outreach, launch platforms, email, partnerships, SEO, directories, referrals, paid, or a custom channel. The bet records why it fits, required founder time, expected cost, expected signal, and test duration.

Studio and Email execute the campaign. AI can draft copy; proof warnings and missing information stay visible. You approve the version you want. Email requires a verified Resend domain you control, and a contact is not marked consented until you attest they gave permission. Broadcasts can be sent now or scheduled. Delivery events are reconciled back into the campaign record.

Content Engine drafts X, Reddit, and blog copy from the same company context. Open it from Distribution, or read the full flow in Content Engine.

Opportunities are sourced, not scanned. Paste the excerpt, name the person, community, or publication, and say why it matches the audience and objective. The score is transparent. Converting an opportunity creates a Studio asset while the source stays attached.

Learn records what happened. Manual metrics include who added them and a source note. UTM links work with publishing you still do yourself. The campaign review asks for the result (won, lost, inconclusive, cancelled), the decision (continue, change, scale, kill), the evidence, the learning, and optionally the next global action. That closed loop is what later ICP analysis can read as distribution learning.

What it does not do

• It does not scrape the internet or claim to have found a community post you did not capture.
• It does not invent reach, impressions, or engagement. Missing stays missing.
• It does not post to social networks, directories, or launch platforms for you.
• It does not send unsolicited bulk email or use purchased lead lists. Consent is founder-attested.
• It does not apply AI proposals without your review.

For the product tour, see Distribution. Follow the Acceptable Use Policy for outreach and integrations.

Where it lives

Content Engine is part of Distribution. Free access uses the Free plan’s lower AI and Memory allowances; Founder, Founder Pro, and Founder Scale include the full Distribution workspace with their larger allowances. Drafts you keep can save into Studio so they join campaign assets and version history.

Platforms

How a draft works

What it uses

• Confirmed Startup Memory as trusted company context.
• The approved ICP when one exists, including search language and objections for blog work.
• The current Journey stage so the draft matches where the company is, not a generic launch tone.
• For Reddit, the community name you enter and any rules you paste, including whether promo is allowed.

What it does not do

• It does not scrape Reddit, X, or the open web for openings.
• It does not post, schedule, or publish on other platforms for you.
• It does not treat promotional intents as allowed when Reddit rules say otherwise.
• It does not invent company claims that are not in Memory or the approved ICP.

For the product story, see Content Engine. Distribution campaign loops are covered in Distribution.

Mutual reviews

Two founders agree to review each other’s startups and write independently. Neither side sees the other review until both have submitted. A public review can be quoted with the author’s name if they publish it. A private note cannot.

• Write about the product, not the person.
• Be specific. Don’t trade praise for a quote.
• Decline is always allowed. No explanation needed.
• Published reviews can be copied with your name. Private notes cannot.
• No harassment, confidential details, or fake identity.
• Blocking cancels any open exchange with that founder.

Follow the Community Guidelines and Acceptable Use Policy. You can report or block another founder from their profile or an exchange.

Polar is the merchant of record: checkout, tax, receipts, and refunds. Cancel in Polar’s customer portal. Access continues through the end of the paid period. Cancellation does not by itself refund the current month.

The first paid FounderRoute subscription payment can be refunded within seven calendar days, once per person or organization. Renewals are normally not refunded. Using up the AI credits pauses AI; it does not create a refund. Full policy: Refunds · Terms · Pricing.

The fastest path is the contact form. A human usually replies within 2–3 business days.

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