What this is — and what we're building

Live today: a stage-based operational maturity framework — diagnostic, wiki, blog, templates, and a Virtual COO agent skill (beta) — so founding teams can see where ops are strong, where they're duct-taped, and what to fix first for their size and context.

Building next: deeper wiki coverage, sharper agent check-ins, and automations — toward an open-source, context-aware fractional COO that answers "what should we do about [this process] right now?" with operator judgment, not generic advice.

Most startups run on duct tape longer than they should. This project exists so you can:

• Identify which processes matter at your stage (from a handful at founding to 30+ as you scale — not all at once)
• Assess maturity across reliability, ownership, documentation, automation, and scalability
• Prioritize what to fix now vs. later, using team size, revenue, and funding context
• Track progress as the company grows

Stage-based means guidance for five founders pre-revenue differs from a 40-person Series B company — written for where you are, not a 500-person playbook.

Why open source?

Operational knowledge shouldn't sit behind expensive consultants or well-funded companies only.

Keeping this open source means startups without budget use the same framework as resourced ones; non-profits and social enterprises can adapt it freely; the community can contribute back; and the model stays honest — no incentive to gate features or add paywalls.

If this becomes an AI-powered tool, the core stays open source. We may explore voluntary contributions or pricing for commercial users later — but the framework, knowledge base, and tool remain free for individuals, non-profits, and early-stage startups without means to pay. Access over lock-in.

Licensed under AGPL-3.0.

What's here now

• Diagnostic — self-assessment calibrated to your stage; scope grows with you (roughly six critical areas at founding, 30+ applicable at scale)
• Wiki — operational knowledge by process and stage; growing via a source-traceable pipeline
• Blog — deep dives with more opinion and "why" than the wiki
• Templates — copy-ready ops structures (filing, diligence, planning)
• Stage roadmap — what matters when, visually

Team

Main curator: @aksie — Stefan Verkerk

Wiki and blog content draws on practitioner interviews and contributions from operators in Stefan's network. The framework is inspired by Scaling Up / Rockefeller Habits and years of hands-on ops work in growing startups.

Want to contribute operator knowledge? See Contributing on GitHub — no developer skills required for many contributions.