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Founder Ghosting Detector
Product Requirements Document — Project 26 of ~34
1. Product Overview
Founder Ghosting Detector is a crowdsourced transparency platform for the startup recruiting ecosystem. It tracks and surfaces patterns of founders who habitually disappear on candidates after interviews, offer conversations, or post-rejection follow-ups — giving job seekers the signal they need before investing weeks of effort.
The platform operates on two sides: candidates report ghosting incidents they've experienced (for free), while paying subscribers gain access to reputation scores, search tools, and proactive alerts. Separately, we sell B2B accounts to startups who want to monitor their own reputation, receive candidate feedback, and resolve issues before they escalate.
2. User Personas
👤 Persona A: The Job Seeker (Primary — Paying)
Age 25–40. Has applied to 20+ roles at early-stage startups. Been ghosted twice. Frustrated.
- Goal: Know which founders are reliable before spending time on interviews.
- Pain: Wastes 2–6 weeks on interview loops only to get ghosted. No recourse. No transparency.
- Behavior: Researches companies on Glassdoor, Blind, LinkedIn. Willing to pay $29/month for a clear signal.
- Needs: Quick founder lookups, clear reputation scores, interview prep tips for high-risk founders.
- Freq of use: High — searches before every application. Checks alerts weekly.
👤 Persona B: The Candidate Who Was Ghosted (Reporter — Free)
Age 22–38. Just had a 5-round interview process end in silence. Angry and wants to warn others.
- Goal: Report what happened, feel heard, prevent others from suffering the same.
- Pain: Emotional frustration from being ignored after investing significant time and emotional energy.
- Behavior: Likely to report if it's fast, anonymous, and feels meaningful.
- Needs: A 2-minute reporting flow. Confirmation their report matters. No friction.
- Freq of use: One-time or rare, but high volume of reports is the product's lifeblood.
🏢 Persona C: Startup Founder / HR Lead (B2B — Paying)
YC/anthology founder or Head of People at a Series A startup. Doesn't want to be on this list.
- Goal: Protect their employer brand, get direct candidate feedback, fix broken processes.
- Pain: Unaware they have a ghosting problem, or aware but lacking tools to track/fix it.
- Behavior: Will pay for a dashboard that shows their reputation score and incoming reports.
- Needs: Reputation dashboard, candidate feedback digest, resolution workflow, alert when new reports arrive.
- Freq of use: Weekly review of dashboard. Real-time alerts on new reports.
👤 Persona D: The Advocate (Passive Supporter)
A friend of a ghosted candidate, a recruiter who hates ghosting, an HR practitioner.
- Goal: Share the platform, amplify signal, support friends in the job market.
- Behavior: Shares links, writes about ghosting on LinkedIn, recommends to network.
- Value: Organic growth engine. Virality through career communities.
3. Core Features
3.1 Ghost Report Database
A searchable, filterable database of ghosting incidents reported by candidates. Each report captures:
- Founder name, company name, company stage (pre-seed/seed/Series A+)
- Role type applied for (engineer, designer, product, ops, sales)
- Ghosting stage: Pre-screen, Technical Interview, Onsite/Loop, Offer Stage, Post-Rejection Follow-up
- Date of last contact vs. date of expected response
- Narrative description (free text, 50–1000 chars)
- Anonymous contributor flag
- Verified vs. unverified badge (verified = account-holder with some credential check)
Reports are aggregated into founder-level reputation profiles. The database is publicly searchable but detailed narratives are gated behind $29/month paywall (teaser: ghosting count + score visible for free).
3.2 Founder Reputation Scores
A composite score (0–100) per founder, computed from:
- Ghost Rate: % of reported interactions that ended in ghosting
- Report Volume: More reports = higher confidence in the score
- Recency: Recent reports weighted more heavily
- Stage Breakdown: Separate scores for each ghosting stage (pre-screen, loop, offer)
- Company Context: Adjustments for company growth stage (ghosting at YC is worse than at a 3-person seed)
Scores are displayed as: 🏆 Reliable (80+), ⚠️ Proceed with Care (50–79), 🚨 High Risk (<50). Each profile shows a timeline of reports.
3.3 Interview Prep Tool
When a candidate looks up a founder and sees a yellow or red flag, they get:
- Red Flag Summary: Key patterns (e.g., "ghosts most often at offer stage")
- Candidate Tips: How to handle — e.g., "Get all commitments in writing. Ask 'what's the timeline for feedback?' at end of every interview."
- Interview Question Generator: Based on the founder's background and past ghosting context, suggest questions that surface commitment (e.g., "What's your typical process for closing a candidate after the final round?")
- Time Estimate: "Candidates report spending an average of X hours before ghosting occurred" for this founder
3.4 Alert System
Subscribers can set up:
- Founder Watchlist: Get notified when a new report is filed against a specific founder
- Company Alert: Get notified when any founder at a company gets a new report
- New Report Digest: Weekly email of top ghosting incidents in your target companies
- Reputation Drop Alert: Push notification when a watched founder's score drops by 10+ points
3.5 B2B Startup Dashboard
For startup founders and HR leads who purchase a B2B account:
- Reputation Scorecard: See their company's aggregate score and individual founder scores
- Incoming Report Feed: Read candidate feedback as it arrives (anonymized)
- Resolution Workflow: Flag a report as "addressed" (e.g., candidate was reached back out to)
- Trend Charts: Ghosting score over time, segmented by role type and stage
- Candidate Experience Survey: Proactive outreach tool to candidates after interview loops
- Benchmarking: "You ghost less than 40% of similar-stage startups"
3.6 Reporting Flow (Candidate Side)
5-step flow targeting under 3 minutes:
- Who ghosted you? — Search/select founder + company. Auto-suggest from DB.
- What role? — Job title, level, department.
- When did contact drop? — Date of last message, date expected reply.
- What happened? — Narrative field (required, min 50 chars). Stage dropdown.
- Review & Submit — Confirm details. Option to submit anonymously or with account.
After submission: "Thank you. Your report helps other candidates avoid the same fate." Share CTA after submit.
4. Pricing
| Plan | Price | Access |
|---|
| Free (Reporter) |
$0 |
Submit ghosting reports. View founder scores (no narrative). Basic search. |
| Pro (Candidate) |
$29/month |
Full founder profiles + narratives. Interview prep tool. 10 founder searches/month. Email alerts. |
| Power Search (Candidate) |
$79/month |
Unlimited searches. All alert types. API access. Export reports to PDF/CSV. |
| B2B Startup |
$149/month |
Reputation dashboard. Incoming report feed. Resolution workflow. Up to 5 team seats. Benchmarking. |
| B2B Enterprise |
$499/month |
Unlimited seats. API access. White-label candidate experience surveys. Dedicated account manager. |
Annual billing: 2 months free (20% discount). Volume discounts for B2B: 3+ startups in an accelerator cohort = 25% off.
5. Key Performance Indicators
60%
Resolution Rate (B2B)
12,000
Pro Subscribers Y1
3.5 min
Avg Report Submit Time
KPIs by Category
| Category | Metric | Target |
|---|
| Engagement | Reports submitted / month | Growing 15% MoM |
| Engagement | Avg. session duration | > 4 minutes |
| Engagement | Searches per Pro subscriber / month | > 8 |
| Retention | Pro plan 3-month retention | > 65% |
| Retention | B2B annual renewal rate | > 80% |
| Quality | % reports verified (account-holder) | > 30% |
| Quality | Resolution rate (B2B startups addressing reports) | > 60% |
| Growth | Viral coefficient (shares per report) | > 1.2 |
| Growth | B2B lead-to-close rate | > 15% |
| Financial | Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | < $80 (Pro), < $600 (B2B) |
| Financial | LTV / CAC ratio | > 5:1 |
6. Risk Register
⚠️ Legal Risk: Defamation
Description: A founder claims a report is false and sues for defamation.
Likelihood: Medium — founders have sued review platforms before (e.g., Glassdoor lawsuits).
Mitigation:
- All reports are labeled as "unverified, crowdsourced claims" with prominent disclaimers.
- Legal workflow for founder dispute resolution: flag as disputed, show dispute count on profile.
- No editorial judgment — we aggregate, not editorialize.
- Terms of service include hold-harmless clause; require truth affirmation on report submit.
- Errors & omissions (E&O) insurance coverage.
⚠️ Business Risk: Founder Manipulation
Description: A founder pays users to file fake positive reports or files fake negative reports against competitors.
Likelihood: Medium.
Mitigation:
- Verified account requirement for reports to appear in score calculations (free tier still accepted, flagged as unverified).
- Behavioral anomaly detection (burst of reports from same IP/device, unusual upvote patterns).
- Upvote/downvote on reports by Pro subscribers — community signal.
- Cross-reference timing: a report filed 30 minutes after a rejected application is suspicious.
- Pro account holders have a "verified reporter" badge increasing weight of their reports.
⚠️ Business Risk: Data Acquisition Cold Start
Description: Without reports, the product has no value. Getting initial critical mass of reports is the hardest early-stage problem.
Likelihood: High (classic chicken-and-egg).
Mitigation:
- Launch with seeded data from early beta users (recruiting community outreach).
- Partnership with YC/AngelList/Wellfound communities — integrate ghosting reporting into job application flow.
- Aggressive referral: "Refer a friend, both get 1 month free."
- Viral content: monthly "Top 10 Ghosting Founders" posts on LinkedIn/Twitter.
- Offer free Pro accounts to 100 early reporters.
⚠️ Product Risk: Negative Selection
Description: Only people who've been ghosted use the product, creating a biased negative dataset. Founders who ghost infrequently won't appear, making the dataset unreliable for decision-making.
Likelihood: Medium.
Mitigation:
- Add "had a great experience" reporting option — counterbalance the negative bias.
- Weight scores by report volume (low volume = lower confidence, wider error bars).
- Clearly label score confidence intervals.
- Suppress scores for founders with fewer than 3 reports.
⚠️ Operational Risk: Founder PR Backlash
Description: A well-known founder publicly attacks the platform, claiming it's extorting startups ("pay us or we'll tank your score").
Likelihood: Medium — this has happened to similar platforms.
Mitigation:
- Publish a clear editorial policy: we don't delete legitimate reports, and we don't add positive ones for payment.
- Document and publish response times — show that B2B dashboard helps resolve issues, not hide them.
- Build reputation as a trust arbiter, not a blackmail tool.
- Maintain a public transparency report (number of disputes, resolution rate).
⚠️ Technical Risk: Scalability of Moderation
Description: Report volume grows faster than human review capacity, leading to spam/abuse on the platform.
Likelihood: Low at launch, grows with scale.
Mitigation:
- AI-assisted first-pass moderation (see Architecture doc — Ollama sentiment analysis pipeline flags suspicious content).
- Community flagging system with threshold-based takedown.
- Automated duplicate detection (similar narratives from same founder/company).
- Scale human review only when AI flags require human judgment.
⚠️ Market Risk: Startup Ecosystem Downturn
Description: If startup funding collapses, hiring freezes reduce the candidate pool and the problem shrinks.
Likelihood: Low (but 2023 showed it's possible).
Mitigation:
- Pivot to enterprise/hiring manager ghosting if needed (reversed direction).
- Global expansion to EU/Asia startup markets where the problem persists.
- Job board integration as a secondary revenue stream.
7. Success Definition
Founder Ghosting Detector succeeds when a candidate, before accepting any offer at an early-stage startup, reflexively checks our platform — the same way they check Glassdoor today. When "I checked Founder Ghosting Detector" becomes a natural part of the job-seeking workflow, we've made it.
Quantitatively: 50,000 monthly active searchers and $5M ARR within 24 months of launch.
Project 26 of ~34 — Founder Ghosting Detector · PRD v1.0 · April 21, 2026