StartupDeckAI Documentation

StartupDeckAI is the operating system for startup founders. You describe an idea; we return a full, evidence-backed validation report — market sizing, competition, unit economics, GTM, moat, risk, and an investor memo — in under a minute. This is not a chatbot and not a template pack. It is decision infrastructure for founders building serious companies.

1. Create a free account — no credit card required.
2. Open Validate and describe your idea in 1–3 sentences, or complete the 7-step wizard for a deeper report.
3. Hit Run validation. Within a minute you'll have an investor-ready report.
4. Review sections in the Reports library, export a PDF, or share a signed link.

Accounts use email + password with optional TOTP two-factor authentication. Manage sessions, devices, connected providers, and 2FA under Settings → Security. Recovery codes are generated on 2FA enrolment — store them in a password manager.

Every account has at least one workspace. Workspaces isolate validations, memory, and members. Use the workspace switcher in the sidebar to move between contexts, and project folders to organise related validations (e.g. by market thesis or funding round).

Validation is the process of converting a startup idea into a testable, evidence-backed set of beliefs about a market, a customer, a solution, and an economic model. A good validation report answers: is the problem real, is the market large enough, is the timing right, is your moat defensible, do the unit economics work, and can you actually build and ship it?

The Validation Score is a 0–100 composite of four sub-scores: Demand, Differentiation, Timing, and Moat. Each sub-score is derived from stage outputs with declared weights. A score above 75 signals an idea worth building a prototype for; 55–75 signals iteration; below 55 signals structural rework.

Every recommendation carries a confidence level, an assumptions list, a reasoning summary, and clickable citation chips that link back to the verified sources used to derive the claim. We strictly separate sources used from additional reading so you can audit our outputs — and never confuse a recommended reference for a retrieved fact.

Memory captures long-term project context: the founder's background, prior validations, market beliefs, and product decisions. Later stages retrieve relevant memory automatically so subsequent runs feel like a continuous conversation rather than a fresh prompt.

Every validation run streams through 17 orchestrated stages: problem framing, ICP definition, market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM), competitor discovery, positioning, moat analysis, GTM, pricing, unit economics, risk register, founder fit, investor readiness, and memo synthesis. Stages run in parallel where possible so you see progress on a single rail.

Each stage is independently cached and independently retryable. When a stage fails on a recoverable error (provider timeout, rate limit, schema drift), you can restart onlythat stage — previously succeeded stages replay from cache in milliseconds.

Reports stream over Server-Sent Events. If your connection drops, the client reconnects and resumes from the last delivered stage — cached stages are marked and skipped. You never lose progress mid-run.

Use the wizard when your idea deserves a deeper report. Seven steps: Startup, Customer, Market, Competition, Business, Product, Goals. Each step enriches later pipeline stages with structured context, dramatically improving the quality of market sizing, positioning, and unit economics.

Every wizard field maps to specific downstream stages. Fields marked optional still improve report quality but can be skipped without breaking the pipeline. Hover any field label in-product to see which stages consume it.

Wizard progress autosaves after every field change. Close the tab and resume from any device — the draft is scoped to your workspace and encrypted at rest.

A completed report is organised into: Summary (score + one-line thesis), Market, Customer, Competition, Moat, Unit economics, GTM, Risk, Investor memo, and Appendix (sources, assumptions, methodology). Sections are collapsible, deep-linkable, and print-clean.

• Validation Score (0–100): demand, differentiation, timing, moat.
• Market: TAM, SAM, SOM, CAGR, adjacency map.
• Competitors: direct, indirect, alternative; positioning matrix.
• Unit economics: pricing bands, CAC, LTV, payback period.
• Risk register: execution, regulatory, market, technical, financial.
• Investor memo: narrative, market thesis, GTM plan, ask.

Every claim links to its source. Sources are split into Sources used (retrieved during this run) and Additional reading (recommended by us but not directly consulted). Each entry carries a category, why-relevant blurb, and freshness metadata.

From History or Reports, hit Export PDF. Reports render at print quality with numbered pages, executive summary, evidence summaries, and both sources blocks with full citation metadata.

Generate a signed share link from the report page. Links expire after 30 days by default. Pro plans support custom expiry, view-only watermarks, and revocation.

Free tools require no account and no credit card. They exist to help you get productive quickly and to preview the quality of the full platform.

Generate startup ideas from a market, an unmet need, or a founder skill. Try it →

Domain-aware name generator that checks availability. Try it →

Structured SWOT for any idea in seconds. Try it →

Pre-filled Lean Canvas with editable blocks. Try it →

Free plan includes limited validations per month, full report access, PDF export, and share links. Pro unlocks unlimited validations, priority pipeline, deeper competitor scans, custom share settings, and team seats.

Free plan quota resets monthly. You can see your remaining quota in the sidebar and on the validation page. Retries on recoverable stage failures do not consume additional quota.

Billing is handled by our payment processor. Invoices are available under Settings → Billing. Update your card, download receipts, or cancel from that page.

See our Refund Policy. In short: prorated refunds within 14 days of first upgrade, no-questions-asked for annual plans within 30 days.

See our Security page for the full picture. Highlights: TLS 1.3 everywhere, AES-GCM at rest for sensitive columns (2FA secrets, recovery codes), bcrypt password hashing, per-workspace data isolation via row-level security.

Email + password with optional TOTP 2FA. Sensitive actions require step-up re-authentication. Recovery codes are single-use and hashed at rest.

Validation inputs are stored only in your workspace and never used to train models. See our Privacy Policy for the full data lifecycle.

GDPR-aligned data subject rights, DPDP Act (India), CCPA. DPA available on request for Pro plans.

Coming soon. A public REST API for programmatic validations, report retrieval, and webhook subscriptions. Join the waitlist from Settings → API.

Coming soon. Subscribe to validation.completed, stage.failed, and report.shared events.

Today: PDF and JSON. Roadmap: Notion, Google Docs, Slack, Linear.

How is StartupDeckAI different from ValidatorAI, IdeaProof, or FounderPal?

StartupDeckAI ships a full 17-stage evidence pipeline — not a chatbot, not a template generator. Every stage is retriable, every metric is source-cited, and reports are PDF-clean and investor-ready.

Do you train on my ideas?

No. Your inputs are never used to train models.

Can I share a report?

Yes — generate a signed share link or export a PDF from the report page.

What model providers do you use?

We route across multiple frontier providers via OpenRouter and fail over automatically. Model selection is capability-based, not vendor-based.

Stage stuck in Reconnecting? Refresh — the client resumes from cache. Report missing a section? Retry that stage from the report page. Still stuck? Email us with the run ID from the URL.

A running log of what changed in the StartupDeckAI product and its documentation. Each entry links to the section that was affected so you can jump straight to the update.

Product: hello@startupdeck.in. Security: security@startupdeck.in. Legal: legal@startupdeck.in.