~/code/npm
❯ ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   2 tkellen  staff   68 Mar  7 10:15 .
drwxr-xr-x  15 tkellen  staff  510 Mar  7 10:13 ..

~/code/npm
❯ npm start --prefix ./folder-that-does-not-exist
npm ERR! Darwin 14.1.0
npm ERR! argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "start" "--prefix" "./folder-that-does-not-exist"
npm ERR! node v5.7.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.6.0
npm ERR! path /Users/tkellen/code/npm/folder-that-does-not-exist/package.json
npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! errno -2
npm ERR! syscall open

npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/tkellen/code/npm/folder-that-does-not-exist/package.json'
npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/tkellen/code/npm/folder-that-does-not-exist/package.json'
npm ERR! enoent This is most likely not a problem with npm itself
npm ERR! enoent and is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm ERR! enoent

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /Users/tkellen/code/npm/npm-debug.log

~/code/npm
❯ find .
.
./folder-that-does-not-exist
./folder-that-does-not-exist/etc
./npm-debug.log