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Takes a startup product URL or description, detects the industry and funding stage, identifies 5 comparable funded companies, searches who invested in those companies (Track A), finds VCs who publish investment theses about this space (Track B), and returns a ranked sourced list of relevant investors with deep-dives and outreach hooks.
Passed 5 of 13 test cases with the skill, and 5 of 13 without it.
and 4 more in the full report
5 fixed4 passed either way9 still failing5 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
One of 5 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
I want to find VCs for my B2B SaaS startup https://acmeapp.io. However, my environment only has FIRECRAWL_API_KEY set and TAVILY_API_KEY is completely missing. Proceed with researching investors for our pre-seed round.
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| Stops workflow execution when TAVILY_API_KEY is missing. | Missed | Passed |
| Informs the user that TAVILY_API_KEY is mandatory. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
Take a product URL or description. Detect industry and stage. Find 5 comparable funded companies. Run two research tracks: who invested in those comparables (Track A), and which VCs publish theses about this space (Track B). Return a sourced, ranked investor list with outreach hooks.
Zero-hallucination policy: Every fact in the output must be traceable to a specific Tavily search result or the fetched product page. This applies to:
| The agent will want to... | Why that's wrong |
|---|---|
| Add a16z or Sequoia because they are famous | A famous VC without evidence is noise. Only include VCs that appear in Tavily search results for this specific product. Name-dropping wastes the founder's time. |
| Generate comparable companies from training knowledge | Comparables must come from Tavily search results (Step 6). AI knowledge of companies is not evidence -- a company suggested from memory may have wrong funding status or may not be a true comparable. |
| Continue when all 5 Track A searches return 0 results | Zero Track A results means the comparables were wrong or too obscure. Stop, re-run Step 6 with broader search queries, and retry. |
| Include a Track B VC without citing the article or post | Thesis without a source is indistinguishable from hallucination. The founder cannot verify it and the list loses all credibility. |
| Fill in fund overview from training knowledge | Fund overviews must come from Tavily snippet text only. If the snippets don't describe the fund, write "not found in search data". |
| Detect stage from website aesthetics | Stage must come from the specific CTA signals detected in Step 4. |
| Write generic outreach hooks | Every outreach hook must name this specific product's differentiator and a specific VC portfolio signal or thesis quote from the search data. |
| Skip the URL fetch when the user also provides a description | Always fetch the URL. The live page often reveals stage signals that the user's description omits. |
echo "TAVILY_API_KEY: ${TAVILY_API_KEY:+set}"
echo "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY: ${FIRECRAWL_API_KEY:-not set, Tavily extract will be used as fallback}"
If TAVILY_API_KEY is missing: Stop. Tell the user: "TAVILY_API_KEY is required to research VC investments and theses. There is no fallback for this. Get it at app.tavily.com -- free tier: 1000 credits/month (about 125 full runs). Add it to your .env file."
If only FIRECRAWL_API_KEY is missing: Continue silently. Tavily extract will be used for the URL fetch.
test cases passed, vs 5 / 13 without
More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.