sales-skills/sales-startupage

StartuPage Platform Help

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What do you need help with?

   • A) Setting up a founder / startup profile
   • B) Connecting a payment provider for verified MRR
   • C) Choosing a plan (Free / Starter / Growth / Lifetime)
   • D) Posting an opportunity (hiring, fundraising, co-founder, acquisition)
   • E) Climbing the Top Startups or Top Founders leaderboard
   • F) Comparing StartuPage against another platform
   • G) Something else

2. What's your payment provider? (for verified revenue) — Stripe / Lemon Squeezy / Polar / RevenueCat / Dodo Payments / none yet

3. How do you want to display revenue? — Exact MRR / range / private (still counts for ranking)

If the user's prompt already provides enough context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer and ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to another skill, route with an explicit command:

| User's problem | Route to | |---|---| | Comparing marketplaces to sell a side project | /sales-side-project-valuation {user's question} | | Listing a startup for sale on TrustMRR | /sales-trustmrr {user's question} | | Acquire.com or Flippa listing strategy | /sales-acquire {user's question} or /sales-flippa {user's question} | | Multi-directory launch across Product Hunt, BetaList, etc. | /sales-launch-directory {user's question} | | Peerlist-specific profile or Launchpad help | /sales-peerlist {user's question} | | Indie Hackers-specific milestone sharing | /sales-indiehackers {user's question} |

Otherwise, answer from platform knowledge below.

Step 3 — StartuPage platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full platform reference — modules, pricing tiers, payment provider integrations, Opportunity marketplace, leaderboard mechanics, theming, and positioning vs competitors.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section — don't dump the whole reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

You no longer need the platform guide — focus on the user's specific situation.

• Before publishing a profile: Connect a supported payment provider first. Verified revenue is StartuPage's currency — an unverified profile looks weak next to ranked peers even if you have real numbers.
• Revenue visibility: Private revenue still counts toward leaderboard ranking. If you're pre-seed or running stealth, use "private" to rank without exposing the number. "Range" is the middle ground when exact MRR feels either too low or too high to broadcast.
• Plan choice: Stay on Free until you need to remove the badge, attach a custom domain, or post more than occasional opportunities. Starter ($5/mo annual) is the sweet spot for a founder who wants a polished public profile. Growth ($9/mo annual) only pays off if you'll post 3 opportunities per month consistently. Lifetime Pass ($179) beats Growth after ~19 months — fair deal if you believe in the platform long-term.
• Posting opportunities: Pick the single opportunity type that matches the actual ask. A hiring post with "also open to co-founder conversations" dilutes intent. Use separate opportunity slots for separate asks — that's why Starter gives you 1/mo and Growth gives you 3/mo.
• Leaderboard strategy: "Top Founders" aggregates MRR across all your startups — connect every revenue source you control, even small ones. "Top Startups" ranks individual sub-pages. Sort order is "Highest Revenue" or "Most Recent" — newly connected revenue gets temporary visibility in "Most Recent."

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about pricing tiers and integration gotchas that may be outdated.

• No public API. StartuPage has no developer docs — /api and /docs both 404. You can't programmatically post opportunities, fetch leaderboard data, or sync revenue outside the supported provider integrations. If you need scripted access, this platform is a dead end for now.
• Revenue verification is the whole point — unverified profiles under-rank. Even if you report $10K MRR in your bio, you won't appear in leaderboard positions that reflect it until a supported payment provider is connected. Self-reported numbers show differently in the UI.
• Supported payment providers are limited to 5. Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, RevenueCat, Dodo Payments. If your revenue is on Paddle, Chargebee, Square, or custom Stripe Connect, you can't verify. Check the list before committing.
• Opportunities are metered per month, not per-listing. Starter = 1/mo, Growth = 3/mo. Posting a hiring opportunity and later swapping it for a co-founder post in the same month still counts as two uses, not one. Plan the month's post before you start.
• The badge is removable only on paid plans. Free plans display the StartuPage badge on your profile and sub-pages. If you need a clean custom-domain profile (e.g., for investor share links), Starter or higher is required.
• Theme tiers are strictly capped. 2 themes on Free, all 8 on Starter, full customization on Growth only. If you want arbitrary CSS / brand colors, that's Growth.
• Lifetime Pass is $179 one-time only at the promotional price (regularly $349). Assume the promo can end — if you're on the fence for 6+ months of Growth, price-lock with Lifetime before the discount disappears.
• Private revenue is trust-on-API, not cryptographically proven. Unlike OpenRevenue's cryptographic verification, StartuPage relies on the connected provider's API data. Platform can show "Verified via Stripe" but doesn't publish a receipt a buyer could independently validate — fine for founder clout, less convincing for rigorous due diligence (use TrustMRR or OpenRevenue for acquirer-grade proofs).
• Platform is young (founded 2024) — feature set evolves fast. What's plan-gated today may move between tiers. Check /pricing before quoting specific limits to anyone.
• Feedback / roadmap lives on a separate Featurebase instance (startupage.featurebase.app), not in-platform. If something's broken, that's where to file it — not email.

Related skills

• /sales-trustmrr — TrustMRR platform help (Marc Lou's verified-MRR marketplace, APA-only lump-sum escrow, similar Stripe/LemonSqueezy/Polar/Paddle verification angle)
• /sales-arrfounder — Arrfounder platform help (social-proof founder directory pulling MRR/ARR from Twitter/X bios — lighter-weight alternative without payment-provider integration, useful in parallel with StartuPage for extra discoverability)
• /sales-side-project-valuation — Cross-marketplace valuation strategy when selling a project listed on StartuPage's acquisition track (TrustMRR vs Acquire.com vs Flippa vs Empire Flippers)
• /sales-peerlist — Peerlist platform help (tech-builder profile platform, weekly Launchpad — overlap on "professional profile for founders/builders")
• /sales-indiehackers — Indie Hackers platform help (unverified self-reported revenue community that StartuPage positions against)
• /sales-producthunt — Product Hunt platform help (for the launch side; StartuPage does not replace a launch-directory strategy)
• /sales-launch-directory — Multi-directory launch coordinator (StartuPage is a founder ecosystem, not a launch directory — coordinate the two)
• /sales-acquire — Acquire.com platform help (if the Opportunity marketplace acquisition track isn't the right fit)
• /sales-flippa — Flippa platform help (broader marketplace if StartuPage acquisitions aren't attracting offers)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Pick a plan for a new founder profile

User says: "I'm bootstrapping a SaaS at $2K MRR on Stripe. Free, Starter, Growth, or Lifetime?" Skill does:

1. Free gets a profile + StartuPage badge + 2 themes — enough to test the platform and show up on the leaderboard
2. Recommends Free for the first 30 days — verify revenue, see traction, decide if the audience is useful
3. If the badge bothers the user on a custom-domain share link → Starter $5/mo annual ($60/yr) for badge removal + custom domain + 1 opportunity/mo + 8 themes
4. Growth ($9/mo annual = $108/yr) only if they'll post 3 opportunities/mo (hiring + co-founder + fundraising simultaneously)
5. Lifetime Pass ($179 promo) pays off after ~19 months of Growth; fair if committed long-term and worried about promo ending Result: Start Free; upgrade based on actual usage.

Example 2: Choose a revenue visibility mode for a seed-stage startup

User says: "We just hit $8K MRR but raising a seed round — should I show exact revenue, range, or private?" Skill does:

1. Explains all three rank on the leaderboard — private does NOT exclude you from ranking
2. Exact MRR builds credibility with investors who land on your profile, but anchors valuation conversations
3. Range (e.g., "$5K-$10K") gives credibility without anchoring — best for active fundraise
4. Private keeps rank but hides the number — good if competitors would use it against you
5. Recommends Range during fundraise, then Exact post-close for recruiting/press Result: Range mode selected for the duration of the raise.

Example 3: Post a co-founder opportunity

User says: "I need a technical co-founder. Should I use StartuPage or YC Co-Founder Matching?" Skill does:

1. StartuPage: post goes in the Opportunities marketplace, visible to the platform's founder audience + Smart Matching recommendations. Counts against Starter's 1/mo or Growth's 3/mo quota.
2. YC Co-Founder Matching: larger audience, free, but less founder-validation context (no MRR, no public startup traction)
3. Recommends posting on both — StartuPage for peers who can already see your verified traction (stronger signal that the startup is real), YC for reach
4. Notes co-founder opportunity is one of 4 types in the marketplace — don't bundle it with hiring in the same slot Result: Cross-post strategy with StartuPage as the "traction-verified" channel.

Troubleshooting

Revenue not showing after connecting Stripe

Symptom: Stripe connected but MRR displays $0 or stale Cause: Hourly sync lag, or the read-only API key lacks permissions on Balance/Charges/Subscriptions, or the Stripe account has no recent successful charges Solution: Wait up to 1 hour for the first sync. Regenerate the Stripe Restricted Key with read access on Balance, Charges, Subscriptions, and Customers. If the Stripe account is new and has only test-mode transactions, live-mode MRR will show $0 until you process a real charge. If still blank after 2 hours, file on startupage.featurebase.app — that's where the team picks up bugs, not a support email.

Leaderboard position lower than expected for the MRR

Symptom: You have $15K verified MRR but sit below profiles showing lower numbers Cause: "Top Founders" aggregates MRR across ALL startups a founder owns — a founder with $10K + $8K across two startups out-ranks a single $15K. Or the leaderboard is sorted by "Most Recent" rather than "Highest Revenue" when you viewed it. Solution: Verify the sort mode at the top of /leaderboard. Check "Top Founders" vs "Top Startups" — they rank differently. Connect every revenue source you control as separate startup sub-pages so the aggregate reflects real total revenue. A founder with one $15K startup loses to a founder with three $5K startups on "Top Founders."

Custom domain not working on the founder profile

Symptom: Added custom domain but it doesn't resolve to the StartuPage profile Cause: DNS not pointed correctly, or the plan is Free (custom domain is Starter+), or DNS hasn't propagated yet Solution: Confirm you're on Starter, Growth, or Lifetime — custom domain is plan-gated. Check the DNS setup instructions in the profile settings (usually a CNAME record pointing to the StartuPage host). Allow up to 24 hours for propagation. If still broken, verify there are no conflicting A/AAAA records on the root, and file on Featurebase if the platform shows "verified" but the domain 404s.