For Claude Code users

What to build on Claude Code. Decide in 20 minutes.

Claude Code is a terminal agent that works across a whole repository, planning and executing multi-file changes and running the commands it needs. What it can't tell you is whether the thing is worth building. Nine forced decisions against live G2 and Reddit data, then a Claude Code-optimised spec carrying your buyer, scope, price and launch plan straight into CLAUDE.md.

$5 Quick Take · No credit card · 9 decisions in 20 minutes

Stage 9 · The export

What you paste into CLAUDE.md

A CLAUDE.md at the repository root, which Claude Code reads at the start of every session. It carries the buyer, the V1 scope with its Won't list, the pricing decision and the launch plan, so the agent is planning against a specification rather than against a paragraph. The example below uses a freelance-accountant idea; yours will be specific to your own.

claude.com/code

Pasted into CLAUDE.md · ShipFit Quick Take · $5

## Buyer

Sarah, 38, freelance accountant in the UK. Earns £80k/yr. Willing to pay £29/mo for tools that save admin time. Decision timeline 7 days. Channels: r/accounting, AccountingWEB.

## Problem (severity 9/10 from G2 + Reddit)

Client onboarding takes 4-6 hours per new client. Manual data entry, duplicated forms, chasing missing documents.

## V1 scope — Lean package (2-week build)

✓ Smart intake form with VAT-number prefill ✓ Document upload with auto-categorisation ✓ Welcome email sequence with checklist ✓ Single-page dashboard showing new-client pipeline ✗ Multi-user access (Balanced package only) ✗ Stripe integration (post-MVP)

## Stack

Next.js 14, Supabase auth + Postgres, Tailwind. Deploy via the host platform.

## Pricing (Van Westendorp: £19-£39, optimal £29)

Free: 1 active client · Pro: £29/mo, 10 clients · Agency: £79/mo, unlimited

## Launch (channel-matched to buyer)

Week 1: r/accounting AMA + AccountingWEB guest post. Week 2: AccountingWEB ad burst + cold email to 50 firms. Success metric: First paying customer in week 4.

## Tone of voice

Crisp, professional, no fluff. UK English. Sarah is time-poor.

Generated from 9 forced decisions · Sourced from live G2 + Reddit

▶ Run with Claude Code

The failure mode

On Claude Code, the plan becomes the bottleneck

Claude Code will take a plan spanning forty files and carry it out. It will hold the shape of a large codebase, follow a refactor across modules, run the test suite and fix what it broke. The execution constraint that used to govern how much a small team could attempt has largely gone.

Which relocates the problem rather than solving it. Output quality is now set almost entirely by input quality, and the input is usually a paragraph the founder wrote from memory on a Tuesday. An excellent agent executing a vague plan produces a large amount of confident, coherent, well-tested work in a direction nobody verified.

The scarce resource is no longer engineering time. It is a defensible answer to what should be built.

637

ideas put through the sequence since October 2025. 2,888 problems surfaced and ranked.

named frameworks applied at the right stage. Christensen, Fitzpatrick, Vohra, Helmer.

Live

signal from G2, Trustpilot, Reddit, App Store. Real complaints, not generated text.

Quick Take. No credit card. Full 9-stage playbook from $10.

How it works

From idea to Claude Code spec in 20 minutes

9 stages, in order, each one building on the last. Skip one and the next breaks. At the end, the Claude Code-optimised export pastes into CLAUDE.md.

Q1Worth Building?

Ship / Pivot / Kill verdict

Q2Who Pays?

Named buyer + willingness-to-pay

Q3What Hurts?

Pain ranked from G2 + Reddit

Q4How to Win?

Positioning vs real competitors

Q5What's V1?

Lean / Balanced / Full scope

Q6How to Charge?

Van Westendorp pricing tier

Q7Will They Pay?

Landing copy + traffic plan

Q8How to Launch?

Channel-matched playbook

Q9What to Export?

Tool-optimised prompt

Paste into Claude Code. Build.

Same tool, different brief

What changes in CLAUDE.md

Claude Code is the same tool either way. The difference is entirely in what it has been told.

Without the spec

Executes a forty-file plan derived from a paragraph you wrote from memory.

With it

Executes a plan derived from nine decisions with evidence behind each.

Without the spec

Infers intent from the codebase, which only records what was already done.

With it

Reads intent from CLAUDE.md, which records what should be done and why.

Without the spec

Builds the feature you asked for, in full, including the parts you would have cut.

With it

Raises the Won't list before starting, when the cut is still free.

Honest questions

The stuff Claude Code builders actually ask before paying $5.

Frequently asked questions

Can't I just describe my idea to Claude Code directly?

You can, and Claude Code will build it. The problem is Claude Code will build anything. It doesn't tell you the idea has no buyer, the pricing is wrong, the scope is bloated or the launch channel for this audience is paid not organic. ShipFit decides those nine things first so Claude Code builds the right thing, not just the next thing.

Do I still need my Claude Code subscription?

Yes. ShipFit isn't a builder. It's the step before. ShipFit decides what to build. Claude Code builds it. The two are complementary, not competing. ShipFit's stage-9 export drops straight into CLAUDE.md.

Claude Code can already read my whole repo. Why does it need a spec?

Because the repo tells it what exists, not what should. Everything a codebase contains is evidence of a past decision and none of it is evidence that the decision was right. CLAUDE.md is the only place the intent lives.

I use Claude Code alongside Cursor. Do I need two exports?

Pick both at stage 9 and you get both, generated from the same validated state, so the two tools agree about what is in scope. Disagreement between your tools about the release boundary is a surprisingly common source of scope creep.

Does the export interfere with an existing CLAUDE.md?

It is designed to be a section rather than a replacement. Your build commands, conventions and architecture notes stay where they are; the product decisions go in alongside them.

What happens if the verdict goes against my idea?

You saved a Claude Code build cycle, which is the feature rather than the bug. The Quick Take verdict arrives with a Why: which of the nine decisions broke down, whether that was the buyer, the pricing room or the differentiation. You either iterate on the idea or pick a stronger one. Either way, $5 buys a forced conversation with the data before you spend three months building.

Get my Claude Code spec

$5 Quick Take. 2 minutes. Live data. Real verdict. Or $10 for the full 9-stage playbook with the Claude Code-optimised export.