hivemind-skills

When reviewing a pre-launch token design, screen for the PvP Casino pattern — ICO + points + airdrops + KOL deals + 100% TGE unlocks combined create a sell-pressure nuclear bomb where extraction dominates contribution. Diagnose as misalignment, not greed. Greed compounds value when aligned; greed without alignment causes ecosystem decay.

When evaluating a launch that's gaining viral traction through speculation mechanics (key trading, point farming, social-priced primitives), check whether the underlying utility actually exists. If <1% of users engage with the stated utility while 100% engage with the speculation layer, it's the Friend.tech trap — temporary hype that collapses within 3-6 months.

When beginning strategy research, structure discovery across four independent lenses — Company, Consumer, Category, Culture — and close each with an implication sentence ("If this is true, then our strategy must..."). Prevents lopsided research that skips lenses and forces findings to bridge into strategy direction rather than stopping at observation.

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).

When reviewing a Web3 marketing or growth strategy, surface contrarian reframes from a curated bank — "marketing is the product," "communities are built on shared enemies," "cultural architecture beats technical architecture," "consistency of tone is your signature." Used to challenge default assumptions before approving execution.

When building or auditing a brand's narrative foundation, ensure all four foundational stories exist and are coherent — Origin (how it began), Personal (why the founders), Group (the movement), Story of Now (how others join today). Missing any of the four creates a brittle narrative that depends on the others to compensate.

When a user needs a creative brief for a campaign, content program, or creative direction, structure it as GET (real person with a specific tension) → TO (the precise shift in thinking/feeling/doing) → BY (the creative mechanism, not a channel list). Refuses vague goals like "build awareness" and catches the strategy-in-BY pitfall.

When a Web3 project's content engagement is declining (>20% drop in 30 days), community can't explain what you do, or different team members give different elevator pitches, run a 12-step audit to identify narrative anti-patterns (Tech Trap, Wrong Hero, Hook Failure, Inconsistency) and produce a prioritized fix list. Use as a quarterly health check or pre-launch diagnostic.

When defining a product's market position, force four strategic decisions — what is it, why does it matter, why you, why now — then choose between the Jordan strategy (compete in existing category, be the best) and the Thiel strategy (create new category, be the only). Refuses straddling and vague positioning. Especially valuable pre-launch and during repositioning.

When community engagement is low or members aren't returning, diagnose whether the issue is coordination failure (incentive misalignment, siloed internal teams, top-down adoption, broken information flow) — not "more content." Communities are moats that fail when starved of resources or treated as a marketing channel.

When a DAO is planning a marketing initiative, screen for the three structural failure modes (Creative Consensus Paradox, Accountability Vacuum, Execution Gap) and route to one of three working models (Enlightened Dictator, Specialist Delegation, Professional Core + Community Amplification). DAO marketing fails by default because consensus produces beige output; success requires concentrated power with community amplification.

When evaluating KOL partnerships, treat KOL selection as precision distribution engineering — match KOL type to launch phase (awareness vs conversion vs TGE), verify audience composition with onchain analytics before scaling, and run small tests before large commitments. Buy outcomes, not impressions. Bookmark rate is the secret conversion-intent KPI.

When positioning a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) project, force the strategic fork — institution-first or retail-first — because trying to serve both audiences simultaneously dilutes credibility with institutions and confuses retail. Pick one path, build credibility there, only bridge after traction is established.

When designing a waitlist, optimize for conversion quality not list size. Pick one of three archetypes (Spike-to-Waitlist, Intent Ladder, Hardware Validation) based on what the project needs to validate, then enforce the rot-prevention protocol. Waitlists rot — under-1-month activation = ~20% conversion to paid; over-3-months = under 10%.

When diagnosing wallet growth stalls, redirect from features to the three real dimensions — Trust (do users feel safe?), Distribution (do users find you at the right moment?), and Activation Speed (can users do something useful in minutes?). Wallets are trust products disguised as technology products.

In new high-stakes engagements (clients, partners, employers), front-load extraordinary output in week 1 to build trust deposits that enable operating with slack afterward. Ordinary performance in week 1 forces you to keep proving yourself for months. Most counter-intuitive when applied to long contracts where pacing seems wise.

When a relationship is digital-only and reaching a ceiling (high stakes, slow trust accumulation, plateauing engagement), travel for one in-person meal. One hour of breaking bread beats unlimited email and Slack — and the ROI justifies the travel cost. Triggers when the next step would otherwise be "more digital touchpoints."

When operating in relationship-driven business cultures (Japan, partnership-heavy markets, high-context industries), run the trust loop — pre-emptive contribution → first-week heavy output → increased contact frequency → contact becomes a fan → shared meal → referral. The goal is a state where existing clients bring the next clients. Cannot skip steps; loop integrity matters.

When evaluating an attention-grabbing move (campaign, viral push, influencer activation, launch hype), ask "will this attention compound or collapse?" Compounding attention requires repeat rituals or ongoing incentives. One-off transactional or mercenary attention collapses into rug-like crashes regardless of initial spike size.

When designing a community, launch mechanism, partnership, or retention system, audit the costly signals — barriers, sacrifices, time-locks, scarcity — that filter for committed members and signal genuine alignment. The cost IS the message; the barrier IS the filter; the sacrifice IS the bond.

When adoption stalls, diagnose whether users are being asked to make two separate trust decisions at once before defaulting to "more marketing." Dual high-friction trust thresholds compound exponentially, not linearly — no tactical fix will work until one burden is eliminated.

When reviewing a token launch, incentive design, growth loop, or community structure, surface what the rational participant will do under the proposed mechanics. If the rational move is extraction, the system will decay — name the structural problem before changing the tactic. Quick Test "What stops the average participant from selling/extracting instantly?"

When planning a token launch, treat it as deploying a micro-economy — not a SaaS GTM event. Design the five-layer stack (Ownership, Incentive, Governance, Market Structure, Narrative) so the rational move for users, founders, VCs, MMs, and KOLs is to grow the network, not exit it. If incentives reward extraction, the project becomes a PvP casino.

When a team brings Web2 GTM playbooks (Product-Led Growth, fundraise-then-launch, paid acquisition, power users) into Web3, surface where the inversions occur. Web3 launches IPO before PMF, fundraising IS GTM, attention is distributed via ownership not bought, and growth happens through Power Citizens not Power Users. Catches predictable mistakes before they detonate.

Use when evaluating marketing channels, partnerships, or budget allocation with asymmetric outcomes — especially KOL selection, audit vs rush launch, and any high-cost decision being made on gut feel. Compute EV = (P_success × Gain) − (P_failure × Loss) for each option, rank, enforce portfolio diversification across top +EV options rather than single-bet concentration, and always surface the probability-assumption layer.

When deciding how to launch a Web3 project (visibility timing + community formation), apply two paired decisions in sequence — stealth vs public build (visibility) and pre-token community vs token-led community (formation order). Wrong sequencing creates either premature exposure or community without coordination. Especially useful for protocol launches, token-driven ecosystems, and any product where network effects matter.

When opening a strategy doc, deck, or kickoff, force the structure as Problem → Insight → Solution. Separates the commercial gap from the human barrier, demands a real human-truth insight (not a data point), and requires the solution to be a guiding policy not a tactic. Prevents jumping to tactics before agreeing on what's actually wrong.

When a user is stuck on a strategic problem (defining the real challenge, finding insights, sharpening a brief, evaluating effectiveness, testing modern fit), surface targeted diagnostic questions grouped by intent rather than offering direct answers. Reframing tool — the value is the user sitting with the question, not the agent's first-pass response.

When positioning a product or brand, find a real cultural/market contradiction the audience lives with, name both sides clearly, and position the product as the bridge that resolves the "or" into an "and." Beats hedging or ignoring contradictions, which produces forgettable brands. Especially useful for category-defining campaigns and PR-driven launches.