Ventures and mind maps

Flowmaps gives every business idea its own whiteboard that you keep for weeks or months. That's the core idea: one long-lived mind map per venture, so your thinking builds up over time instead of getting lost in notes and chats.

Ventures

A venture is one project or business idea, like "Dog Walk App" or your agency's analytics tool.

• Create one with + New venture (on the Ventures screen, or the + in the sidebar). See Start with your business idea below.
• Each venture card shows how many ideas it has, how many open flags, and when you last worked on it.
• Switch between ventures from the sidebar, under Your ventures. Each venture has a Mind map, a Board (its Kanban) and a Knowledge base.
• Rename it with Edit at the top of its mind map.
• Delete it with the × on its card. This removes the venture and everything on its mind map, and can't be undone.

Give your venture a clear description. The AI features read it to understand what you're building.

Start with your business idea

You don't need to know which features you need. Creating a venture takes three steps:

1. Your idea. Describe it in a few sentences: who it's for, what problem it solves, and how you'd make money. Leave the name empty and Claude suggests one.

   • Already have a website? Paste the link under Already have a website? and click Fill in from my website. Flowmaps reads the page and writes the description for you, including what your product already offers. Read it through and change anything that's off. Without an Anthropic API key it fills in your website's own description instead.

2. Pick features. Claude recommends 8 to 15 features in plain language, in three groups:

   • Needed for launch: the smallest set to launch and win your first customers. These are ticked already.
   • Next: worth building soon after launch.
   • Later: good ideas for when the basics work.

   It also includes essentials beginners often forget, like payments or a privacy policy, when your product needs them. Untick what you don't want, tick extras, or add your own. How will you build it? Below the features, pick your tools. Claude Code with our recommended setup (Next.js for the app, Supabase for data and sign-in, Vercel to put it online) is picked for you: it's free to start and what Flowmaps knows best. You can also pick Lovable, Bolt or Replit, type your own choice of tools, or say I already have a project. Your choice is saved as a skill on the venture, so every build step uses the same tools.

3. Your mind map. Click Create my mind map. Your features appear as cards, launch features on the left, with "depends on" lines showing what needs to be built first. Risky features already have their flags. Unless you picked I already have a project, the first card on the left is Set up the project: it's already Ready, with its build prompts written, and your launch features depend on it. Build it first; Claude Code walks you through the free accounts you need.

Recommendations need your Anthropic API key. Without it, you can still create the venture and add features yourself.

More recommendations later

On any mind map, click Recommend features under the bar at the bottom (or the button on an empty mind map). Claude looks at your venture and the cards you already have, and only suggests what's still missing. New cards are placed below your existing ones.

Scan for gaps

Built up a big map yourself? Click Scan for gaps under the bar at the bottom. Claude checks your whole map, sub-features and notes included, for what products usually need and beginners often forget:

• Accounts & security: log-in, password reset, who can see what, protection against abuse
• Data & storage: a real database (for example Supabase), file storage, backups
• Payments, Privacy & terms, Emails & notifications, Admin & support, Analytics and Quality
• Features that fit: a few ideas that would make your product better

Each gap says why it matters for your product and where it fits: under an existing card as a sub-feature, or as a new feature. Things you need before launch are ticked for you; tick or untick the rest and click Add to the mind map. Sub-features land under their parent with a line, and the reason is saved in the card's notes. It takes about 30 seconds and needs your Anthropic API key.

The Mind map

The mind map is a big board where every idea is a card.

Add ideas

Type an idea in the bar at the bottom and press Add (or Enter). Keep it rough, like "Users can book a walk". You can add details later. Got more to say? The bar grows as you type (Shift+Enter starts a new line). Want more room? Drag its top edge up to make it taller, or a side to make it wider; double-click an edge to reset. Flowmaps remembers the size. The first line becomes the card title and the whole text goes into its notes.

With an API key set, Claude also suggests follow-up ideas. See AI suggestions.

Move around

• Drag a card to move it. Its position is saved when you let go.
• Scroll or pinch to zoom, and drag the empty background to pan.
• Use the zoom buttons (top left) and the mini map (top right) to find your way on a big mind map.
• Stuck? Type in Search help at the top (or press /) to find the right help article. It opens in a new tab, so your mind map stays open.

Connect ideas

Drag from the dot at the bottom of one card to the dot at the top of another card to draw a line. Click a line to choose what it means:

• related to: these belong together. A line from a feature to another card makes that card a sub-feature of it (follow-ups you accept from Claude are linked this way).
• depends on: this one needs the other one first (a moving blue arrow)
• blocks: this one stands in the way of the other (shown in red)

See how features hang together

• Main features are the bigger cards. Sub-features are smaller and say part of … at the top. A main feature shows how many sub-features it has.
• Colours show feature groups: every main feature gets its own colour, and its sub-features share it. Prefer to see progress? Switch Colour by to Status in the legend (bottom left), and cards are coloured Idea, Scoped, Ready, In Progress or Shipped instead. Flowmaps remembers your choice.
• Hover a card to light up everything it's connected to: its main feature, its sub-features, and what it needs first. The rest fades for a moment.

To remove a line, click it and choose Delete, or select it and press Backspace.

Edit a card

Click a card to open its side panel. At the top, a green Next step tells you what to do with this feature now (generate its build prompts, move it to Ready, build it, finish it, or tell your customers), and the part of the panel to use lights up. There you can:

• change the title and write notes: what it is, who it's for, what "done" looks like
• set its status: Idea → Scoped → Ready → In Progress → Shipped
• read and review its flags
• ask for follow-up suggestions
• generate build prompts
• delete the card and its lines

Card colors follow the status, so you can see at a glance what's still an idea and what's shipped.

Example

You create the venture "Dog Walk App": "Book trusted dog walkers in your neighbourhood."

On its mind map you add Book a walk, Walker profile and Pay online. You draw a line from Book a walk to Walker profile and set it to depends on, because you can't book someone without a profile. Weeks later you come back, and everything is still there, ready to build on.