Techstars Application Coach Skill — Development skill for Claude Code

Techstars Application Coach — a Claude Skill

A [Claude Skill](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12512198-how-to-create-custom-skills) that coaches founders through writing a strong Techstars accelerator application and turns it into a submittable document.

It works two ways:

• Coach mode — builds answers from scratch, one question at a time, asking you for the raw specifics each question needs.
• Critique mode — takes a draft you paste in, names the single biggest weakness of each answer, and rewrites it stronger using your own facts.

The skill covers all **11 application questions** (problem, product, team, traction, business model / TAM, target audience / ICP, competitors, competitive advantage, why now, customer acquisition, milestones), enforces the form's character limits, and produces a finished `.docx` (optionally a Google Doc) you can paste straight into the portal.

It is based on the Techstars Application Guide by Andres Barreto (Techstars alum and Managing Director).

What's in here

techstars-application-coach/
├── SKILL.md                      # the workflow: modes, writing style, the quality bar
└── references/
    ├── questions.md              # the full rubric for all 11 questions + character limits
    ├── bottom-up-tam.md          # the proper bottom-up TAM method (question 5)
    └── moats.md                  # honest competitive-advantage / moat coaching (question 8)

`SKILL.md` governs the workflow; the reference files carry the substance and are loaded only when a given question needs them.

The one idea behind it

Almost every weak application answer fails the same way: it's generic when it should be specific, and it asserts when it should show evidence. The skill's whole job is to drag every answer from vague claim to specific, quantified, evidence-backed detail — and to make it fit the character limit.

Install on Claude

Skills require **Code execution and file creation** to be enabled. They're availabl