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Found 34 Skills
Position a product using April Dunford's Obviously Awesome framework. Use when asked to define positioning, articulate differentiation, write a value proposition, or figure out how to position a product in the market. Follows the five-step competitive alternatives approach.
Write a product positioning document and messaging framework. Use when asked to define product positioning, write a positioning statement, build a messaging framework, or create a messaging hierarchy. Produces a complete positioning doc with category definition, target customer, differentiation, proof points, messaging pillars, and persona-specific messaging.
Creates positioning, messaging, and brand architecture frameworks for multi-product companies. Use when the user wants to 'position a product suite,' 'multi-product positioning,' 'portfolio positioning,' 'brand architecture,' 'core narrative,' 'house of brands vs branded house,' 'product portfolio messaging,' 'launch a second product,' 'launch a new product into our suite,' 'audit our portfolio messaging,' or 'are our products fighting each other.' Sits above product-positioning and product-messaging in the hierarchy. Forces a brand architecture decision first, then builds the layered framework that single-product skills run inside of.
Use when asked to "jobs to be done", "JTBD", "why customers churn", "prep for customer interviews", "hire and fire products", or "find real competitors". Helps discover unmet needs and the context behind purchasing decisions. The Jobs to be Done framework (created by Clayton Christensen and Bob Moesta) explains why customers hire and fire products.
When translating product details into messaging, climb a 4-rung ladder from Feature → Product Truth → Functional Benefit → Emotional Benefit. Forces every emotional claim to have a credibility chain back to a verifiable feature, beating messaging that's either too technical (specs without meaning) or too floaty (emotion without proof).
Map a market's segments, players, substitutes, and whitespace with cited evidence. Use when entering or re-evaluating a market before sizing, positioning, or picking competitors to study.
Deciding what to build or why adoption fails. Recover the progress users hire a solution for under a circumstance, then rank by outcome and competing workarounds.
Perform a deep competitive analysis for a solopreneur business. Use when mapping competitors in detail, finding exploitable gaps, understanding competitor strategy, benchmarking your own offering, or deciding how to position against the field. Goes deeper than the broad landscape mapping in market-research — this is focused dissection of specific competitors. Trigger on "analyze my competitors", "competitive analysis", "who are my competitors", "competitor deep-dive", "how do I beat the competition", "competitive landscape", "benchmark against competitors".
Facilitates the third step of a proven ideal-customer (ICP) method: refining classified strengths into keystones — the specific characteristics, behaviors, or circumstances that make a customer NEED an extreme version of a strength, badly enough to drive the purchase alone. Takes a strengths chart (S1, S2, … — file or pasted), walks the strengths one at a time asking who requires an extreme version of each, gates every candidate on naming a real market segment that typifies it (no segment = table stakes, cut), and records survivors in KEYSTONES.md (K1, K2, … with [S] references and example segments). Delivers the strategic verdict when few or none survive: the product isn't compelling yet. Load when the user has classified strengths and asks who needs them, who their target market is, or 'turn our strengths into keystones.' Do NOT load to classify strengths and weaknesses (the previous step), to derive deal-breakers or the anti-market (the next step), or to write the final ideal-customer definition (later).
Help users craft product positioning and messaging. Use when someone is launching a product, differentiating from competitors, writing marketing copy, struggling to explain what their product does, or working on value propositions and taglines.
Facilitates the fifth step of a proven ideal-customer (ICP) method: mapping inciting events — the specific trigger moments that move a perfect-fit customer from could-buy-someday to buying-today. Takes a keystones file (K1, K2, … with market segments) and, when available, customer-interview findings; walks the keystones one at a time, harvesting real trigger stories from interview evidence (marked observed) and working backward through brainstorm lenses — crises, seasonal cycles, strategic windows, personal life-changes — for the rest (marked hypothesized), recording each event with the keystone it couples to and how to find prospects in that condition, in INCITING-EVENTS.md (E1, E2, …). Load when the user has keystones and asks what makes customers buy now, what triggers a purchase, or 'run the inciting-events step.' Do NOT load to derive keystones or deal-breakers (previous steps), to write the final ideal-customer definition (next step), or to write the ads themselves.
April Dunford's 10-step positioning methodology for B2B tech products. Use when customers don't understand the product, sales cycles are long because reps must "explain it," prospects compare you to wrong competitors, or you face price pressure despite a good product. Covers competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value themes, target market characteristics, market category (Head to Head / Big Fish Small Pond / New Game), and trend layering.