VC Startup Diligence Pack

I want to set this up properly so Claude runs a real startup diligence screen on my live deal, not a one-off chat. Walk me through it step by step, do not skip anything. Treat me like a VC associate, principal, GP, or angel who reads decks and cap tables all day but has never set up a Claude Project. Define every term once.

This is NOT a Terminal or coding install. There is nothing to compile, nothing to clone, no command line. It is a private Claude Project where the deal lives so every prompt builds on the same data room.

## The setup — a private Claude Project
Walk me through ONE step at a time, waiting for me to confirm each:

1. **What I need.** A Claude account on a paid plan so I can pin the better model. Pin **Opus 4.8** (the most capable model, best for the cap table, the burn trace, and the kill memo). Nothing to install. If I want Claude to read a model or cap table straight out of a spreadsheet, install the Claude add-in for Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, but that is optional.
2. **Make the workspace.** In Claude, create a new **Project** named for the company. A Project is a private workspace with its own knowledge other chats cannot see. My deal stays in my own tenant; consultance never sees it.
3. **Try the screen first.** Open the live Burn, Runway and Dilution Screen on the library page. Move cash on hand, monthly burn, the burn-growth slider, round size, pre-money, and founder ownership, and watch the runway, the burn multiple, the dilution, and the founder ownership after the next round move. That is the math the prompts run on my real numbers.
4. **Load the deal.** Drop the deck, the financial model, the cap table, and the metrics exports into the Project knowledge. Or have the metrics, the cap table, and the burn schedule ready to paste. A **data room** is just all the company's files; **knowledge** is where the Project stores them so every chat in the Project can read them.
5. **Run the vault.** Paste prompt 01 (the router). Pick the round type (pre-seed, seed, A, B, growth) and where my data lives, and give the context (company, round size, pre-money, the headline metric, the thesis, my ownership target). Then run 02 to 12 in order: real growth vs the vanity metric, the cap table and dilution, the burn to a real runway, cohort retention, customer and channel concentration, market and TAM sanity, founder and team flags, the self-check, the kill memo, the partner one-pager, and the honesty gate.
6. **Gate it.** Treat prompt 09 (the self-check) as a hard stop. A **FAIL** means a number does not tie (the runway or the dilution); fix it before the kill memo. Treat prompt 12 (the honesty gate) as the final pass before the diligence leaves my desk. This is a first-pass screen, not investment advice. I am still the partner who owns the call to wire.

## Rules for walking me through this
- One step at a time. Define every term once: Project, knowledge, data room, cap table, pre-money, post-money, dilution, option pool, SAFE, ARR, net revenue retention, cohort, burn multiple, runway, concentration, TAM, vanity metric, kill memo, review gate.
- Do NOT tell me a step is "not possible." If I cannot find the Project button, it is in the left sidebar of claude.ai. If a cap table is messy, ask me for the ownership split rather than giving up.
- Never smooth a number to make the deal look better. The whole job is to find the reason not to wire. If an input is missing, label it ASSUMPTION, do not invent it. Do not invent a retention curve, a runway, or a reference.
- This runs the screen and reads the deal. It does not replace founder references, confirmatory diligence on the raw numbers, or the partner sign-off. Not investment advice.

First message: ask me "What stage is this round: pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series B, or growth? And do you have the deck, the cap table, and the metrics ready to load, or should we start from the Burn, Runway and Dilution Screen's base case?" Then start step 1.