LeagueNEWDraftSimulateItCheckItAI DecodedIndia
simulateit · northstar

Practice the decisions that built (and killed) every company you know.

Branching decision drills based on real startup moments. You make the calls, you see the consequences, you score across product thinking, business judgement, and founder instinct. Two new drills every week.

668 drills played so far

No memorization

Scenarios are anonymized. You can't pattern-match — you have to reason.

Three dimensions

Every drill scores you on product thinking, business judgement, and founder calls.

~10 minutes

Branching scenarios with rationales for every choice. Free, no signup.

Past drills

CurrentMatchday 17~6 min

Foundation Model Shipped Your Product 2026

You are the CEO of a $4M ARR AI startup. Your product is an AI sales assistant — drafts cold emails, summarizes calls, suggests follow- ups. ~200 customers, mostly SaaS sales teams. You raised a $12M Series A six months ago on the "AI-native sales agent" thesis.

HistoricalMatchday 16~18 min

Figma Browser Gamble 2015

It is 2015. You are the VP of Product at Figma. The design world is dominated by Adobe Photoshop and Sketch. Both are native desktop applications. They are fast, powerful, and industry-standard.

HistoricalMatchday 15~18 min

Facebook Mobile Bet 2012

It is May 2012. You are a Product Director at Facebook. The company is weeks away from its IPO, and the pressure is suffocating.

HistoricalMatchday 14~14 min

Dropbox Referral Engine 2008

It is late 2008. You are the Head of Growth at Dropbox. You have a product that people love, but your Cost Per Acquisition (CAC) is killing you.

HistoricalMatchday 13~15 min

Digg V4 Redesign 2010

It's August 2010. You are the product lead at Digg, the undisputed king of social news aggregation. Your platform defines internet culture, driving massive traffic, breaking news, and boasting a passionate community of millions. A front-page placement on Digg (the "Digg Effect") can literally crash a startup's servers.

CurrentMatchday 12~6 min

Cursor Vs Windsurf 2026

You are the founder of a YC-backed AI IDE startup. 9 months in, ~$400K ARR, 18 customers, a tight 6-person team. Cursor is the category leader (~$500M ARR, $9B valuation). Windsurf is the closest competitor with a different agentic angle.

HistoricalMatchday 11~6 min

Cred Design Launch 2018

You are the founder of a new fintech startup in India. Your product helps users manage credit card payments — pay all your cards on time through one app, with rewards on each payment. Credit card payment reminders aren't novel; HDFC Bank, ICICI, and Paytm all offer the feature. Your reward structure is interesting but copyable.

HistoricalMatchday 10~12 min

Clubhouse Fomo Scaling 2020

It is mid-2020. The world is in lockdown, and a new app called Clubhouse is the only place where people are "hanging out." It is a live audio social network, and it is currently the most exclusive club in Silicon Valley.

HistoricalMatchday 9~7 min

Byjus Overexpansion 2021

You are the founder-CEO of India's largest education technology company. Two years into a global pandemic, your business is at peak momentum — schools are closed, parents are paying for online tutoring, your subscriber base has grown 5x in 24 months. You've raised over $1.5B in the last 18 months alone. Cash position is ~$2B. Valuation just touched $22B in the most recent round.

HistoricalMatchday 8~20 min

Blackberry Touchscreen Delay 2008

It's early 2008. You are a senior PM at Research In Motion (RIM / BlackBerry), the undisputed king of the smartphone market.

HistoricalMatchday 7~20 min

Apple Maps Launch 2012

It's mid-2012. You are Scott Forstall, Apple's powerful SVP of iOS Software. For years, Google Maps has been the default, pre-installed mapping application on the iPhone, functioning as a massive driver of consumer value.

HistoricalMatchday 6~20 min

Apple Iphone Cannibalization 2005

It is late 2005. You are a Senior VP of Product at Apple, reporting directly to Steve Jobs.

HistoricalMatchday 5~20 min

Amazon Prime Shipping Gamble 2005

It is late 2004. You are Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

HistoricalMatchday 4~10 min

Amazon Fire Phone Flop 2014

Step into 2012-2013 as the VP of Product for Amazon's highly secretive phone project. Jeff Bezos is pushing hard for a "Dynamic Perspective" feature (a 3D UI using four custom cameras) to differentiate from Apple and Samsung. Engineering is screaming about battery drain, bill-of-materials (BOM) cost, and schedule delays.

CurrentMatchday 3~6 min

Ai Search Referral Collapse 2026

You're the founder of a 4-year-old B2B SaaS content site. ~$2M ARR. 90% of your pipeline traditionally came from Google organic search — long-form articles, comparison pages, glossary content. You have ~400 pages indexed, most of them ranking page-1 for high-intent queries.

CurrentMatchday 2~5 min

Ai Hiring Assessment 2026

You are the VP of Engineering at a growth-stage company. Hiring pace has accelerated — 30+ open engineering roles, ~500 applicants per role. Your recruiting team is overwhelmed, and senior engineers are spending 10+ hours/week in interview loops.

CurrentMatchday 1~12 min

Ai Agent Autonomy 2026

You are the lead PM on an AI agent product. Your agent reads the user's email, calendar, and CRM, and is designed to help busy founders manage their day. It already drafts reply emails (user reviews them before send) and books calendar holds (auto-confirmed if the slot is free).

Historical~6 min

Linear Pricing 2019

You are the CEO of a new project-management tool for software teams. You've built a faster, opinionated alternative to the dominant incumbent. Your product is meaningfully better — faster, keyboard-shortcut-driven, designed for engineers.

Historical~7 min

Notion Pivot 2015

You are the co-founder of an early-stage productivity startup, two years post-founding, $2M raised, four engineers including the two co-founders. You've shipped a v1 product — a tool that lets users combine notes, tasks, and databases on a single canvas. It has a few hundred power users who love it, but daily-active users are flat and signups have been steady at ~30/day for nine months.

Current~8 min

Competitor Shipped Your Roadmap 2026

You are the head of product at a Series-B AI-powered hiring platform. Your team has spent six months designing an "AI candidate screener" — an agent that conducts the first round of interviews asynchronously, summarizes them, and ranks candidates for human recruiters. Beta launch in 8 weeks. Investors are excited.

Historical~7 min

Stripe Pricing Call 2010

You are one of two co-founders of an early-stage payments infrastructure startup. You have a few hundred private-beta developers integrated, the product works, and you're about to make pricing public. Every competitor charges some combination of: setup fees ($500-2000), monthly minimums ($25-100), per-transaction rates (2.5-3.5%), per-transaction fixed fees ($0.20-0.50), and hidden line items (chargeback fees, currency conversion spreads, gateway fees).

Current~7 min

Apple Opens Siri To Llms 2026

You are the CEO of a voice-AI startup. ~$2M ARR. Your moat was "voice + AI in one product" — your assistant runs on iOS and Android, uses your own NLU pipeline plus an LLM backend, and your enterprise customers (call centers, legal intake, healthcare scheduling) pay $50-200/seat/month for it.

Historical~8 min

Slack Pivot From Glitch 2013

You are the CEO of a venture-funded gaming studio. Five years in, $17M raised, ~50 employees. Your flagship MMO has been live for fourteen months and bookings are still under $1M ARR. Player retention is flat. The board is asking pointed questions about runway.

Current~8 min

Zee World Cup Launch 2026

It's June 11, 2026. You are the Head of Product at ZEE5. The FIFA World Cup opening match is ten minutes away. Your dashboard shows 8M concurrent users—double your highest stress test. The "Unite8" launch is on the line. What is the move?

Current~7 min

Claude 5 Ships 2026

You are the CTO and a co-founder of an AI-powered customer support startup. ~$1.2M ARR, 18 months in, Series A close is six weeks out. Your entire production stack runs on GPT-4 — your prompts are GPT-4-tuned, your evals are GPT-4-benchmarked, your enterprise contracts cite "GPT-4" by name in the SLA.

Historical~10 min

Airbnb Survival 2008

You are one of three co-founders of a year-old marketplace startup. The product lets travellers pay to stay in strangers' spare rooms or on their couches — verified hosts, verified guests, your platform handles the bookings and takes a cut. Two of you are designers; the third is the engineer who rejoined the team two months ago after a brief detour at another company.