Details
Overview
Strategies: Cold Start Skill is an open-source Agent Skill from the kostja94/marketing-skills collection (MIT). It teaches AI coding agents focused marketing / SEO workflows so they can produce production-ready guidance instead of generic advice.
Guides cold start strategy for AI/SaaS products: getting first users and traction when you have zero. The cold start problem is overcoming the chicken-and-egg barrier; most startups fail due to poor distribution, not product quality. For indie hacker context (first 100 users, Build in Public, Pieter Levels tactics), see indie-hacker-strategy.
Identify: 1. Product type: AI tool, SaaS, app, B2B, B2C 2. Target audience: Where they spend time 3. Budget: Zero, minimal ($500–1K), or moderate 4. Timeline: Pre-launch, launch week, post-launch
Official skill id: cold-start-strategy. Source path: skills/strategies/launch/cold-start.
Key Features
- V: alidate demand: 10–15 target user conversations; 20–30 before launch
- W: aitlist: 8–12 weeks before launch; target 200–1,000 signups
- L: anding page: Ready; screenshots, description, media kit
- A: void: Perfectionism; large-scale paid ads before PMF—see paid-ads-strategy. Small-budget Google Ads for PMF testing is valid.
- H: iring SDRs before founder has closed 10 customers
- L: arge-scale paid ads before product-market fit—see paid-ads-strategy. Small-budget PMF testing (e.g., $47–500 Google Ads + landing page) is valid.
How to Use
- Use a Skill-compatible agent such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex.
- Install from the terminal (Node.js required):
npx skills add https://github.com/kostja94/marketing-skills --skill cold-start
Or paste the install prompt from this tool page into your agent and ask it to install for you. 3. Restart / reload the agent so the new Skill is loaded. 4. Invoke the Skill with its slash commands or by asking the agent to run the workflow described in Overview / Key Features. 5. Review outputs before publishing — treat model-generated copy, images, and data as drafts.
Pricing
| Plan | Billing | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | — | Free | MIT license; install via npx skills add |
| Full pack | — | Free | Optional: install the entire marketing-skills repo |
No paid tiers. Check the GitHub repository for license and updates.
Best For
Marketers, indie hackers, ecommerce / SaaS founders, and SEO operators who want agents to execute a specific marketing task with structured best practices.
Trigger context from the skill author: When the user wants to plan cold start, get first users, or launch a new product with zero traction. Also use when the user mentions "cold start," "cold start problem," "first users," "seed users," "finding users," "finding early users," "Fiverr Upwork," "comment outreach," "Twitter search users," "product launch…
FAQ
How do I install this skill?
npx skills add https://github.com/kostja94/marketing-skills --skill cold-start-strategy
Or copy the skill folder into .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, or .claude/skills/.
Does this skill run code on my machine?
No. Skills in this collection are pure Markdown instructions for agents — no executable payloads.
Can I install only this skill instead of the full pack?
Yes. Prefer --skill cold-start-strategy for a single task. Install 2–3 related skills per job rather than the entire library.
Where should I add project context?
Copy templates/project-context.md from the repo into .cursor/ or .claude/ and fill in product, audience, and brand details so outputs stay tailored.