| name | product |
| description | Product strategy skill covering positioning frameworks, competitive research methodology, messaging principles, and go-to-market patterns. Research-first — agents conduct extensive primary web research before analysis. |
| user-invocable | true |
Product Strategy
A research-driven skill for product positioning, competitive analysis, messaging, and go-to-market strategy. Every assessment and recommendation must be grounded in primary research, not assumptions.
Commands in This Family
| Command | Purpose |
|---|
/product:position | Guided positioning exercise with competitive research |
/product:audit | Research-driven assessment of product positioning and readiness |
/product:brief | Generate product one-pagers, pitch content, and messaging from research + positioning |
See the individual sub-skills for full details and research protocols.
When to Use This Skill
Activate this skill when:
- Assessing product-market fit and positioning quality
- Running competitive analysis and comparison
- Crafting or refining product positioning
- Generating product briefs, one-pagers, or pitch content
- Evaluating developer experience and onboarding paths
- Planning go-to-market strategy
Research-First Principle
Every product command must conduct primary research before analysis.
The agent does not rely solely on local codebase artifacts. Before any assessment, the agent researches:
- The competitive landscape — Who else solves this problem? How do they position?
- The market category — What category does this product compete in? What are category norms?
- Comparable successes — What products in adjacent categories have strong positioning? What can we learn?
- Community signal — What do users, developers, and industry observers say about products in this space?
Research Tools
| Tool | When to Use |
|---|
| Web Search | Discover competitors, market analysis, industry trends, community discussions |
| Web Fetch | Read competitor landing pages, pricing pages, docs, READMEs, changelogs |
| Browser (Chrome DevTools MCP) | Screenshot competitor UX, analyze onboarding flows, inspect design quality |
GitHub API (gh) | Analyze competitor repos — stars, activity, issues, contributor health, release cadence |
| Social/Community | Search X/Twitter, Hacker News, Reddit, Dev.to for product mentions and sentiment |
Research Standards
- Breadth: Research at least 3-5 competitors or comparable products per analysis
- Depth: For each competitor, read at minimum: landing page, pricing page, docs/README, and GitHub repo (if open source)
- Recency: Prefer recent sources (last 12 months). Flag findings based on older data.
- Attribution: Cite sources for every competitive claim. "Competitor X charges $Y/month" must link to the pricing page.
- Objectivity: Report what competitors do well, not just weaknesses. Honest assessment is more useful than cheerleading.
Positioning Frameworks
April Dunford — Obviously Awesome (Primary)
The core positioning exercise. Work through these five components in order:
- Competitive Alternatives — What would customers use if your product didn't exist? (Not just direct competitors — include manual processes, spreadsheets, hiring, building in-house)
- Unique Attributes — What do you have that alternatives don't? (Technical capabilities, design choices, architectural decisions — must be verifiable from the codebase)
- Value — What does each unique attribute enable for the customer? (Translate features into outcomes)
- Target Customer — Who cares most about that value? (Define the characteristics of your best-fit customer)
- Market Category — What category makes your value obvious to your target customer? (Category choice frames expectations)
Gibson Biddle — DHM Model (Assessment)
Evaluate product strategy through three lenses:
- Delight: Does the product create genuine delight? (UX quality, surprising capabilities, emotional response)
- Hard-to-copy: What makes this defensible? (Unique data, network effects, integration depth, technical moat, community)
- Margin-enhancing: Does the business model scale? (Self-serve, usage-based pricing, low marginal cost)
Sean Ellis — PMF Test (Measurement)
Proxy indicators from artifacts (since we can't survey users directly):
- Problem articulation depth: Does the product name a specific pain, or generic value?
- Solution specificity: Is the solution concrete, or vague promises?
- Usage signals: Stars, downloads, community activity, issue velocity
- Retention signals: Changelog activity, release cadence, documentation depth
Strategyzer — Value Proposition Canvas (Discovery)
Map the value proposition:
- Customer Jobs: What are they trying to accomplish?
- Pains: What obstacles, risks, or frustrations do they face?
- Gains: What outcomes or benefits do they desire?
- Pain Relievers: How does the product address specific pains?
- Gain Creators: How does the product enable specific gains?
Messaging Principles
Clarity Hierarchy
- What it is — One sentence, no jargon
- Who it's for — Specific audience, not "everyone"
- Why it matters — The outcome, not the mechanism
- How it works — Only after the above are clear
- Why now — Urgency or timeliness (if applicable)
Cross-Surface Consistency
Product messaging appears on many surfaces. All must align:
| Surface | Role | Common Failure |
|---|
| README | Technical first impression | Too much implementation, not enough "why" |
| Landing page | Commercial first impression | Vague benefits, no specifics |
| Package metadata | Discovery (npm, PyPI, crates.io) | Generic description, wrong keywords |
| CLI help text | In-product guidance | Different terminology than docs |
| Error messages | Failure experience | Leaks internals, not actionable |
| Docs intro | Onboarding first page | Assumes context the reader doesn't have |
| GitHub description | Search/browse discovery | Doesn't match README positioning |
Copy Patterns
- Specificity over superlatives: "Processes 10K events/sec on a single core" beats "blazing fast"
- Show, don't claim: Demo, screenshot, or benchmark > adjective
- Name the pain: "Tired of writing boilerplate auth middleware?" > "Simple authentication"
- Comparison anchoring: "Like X but for Y" or "X without the Z" — only if the anchor is well-known
Developer Experience Patterns (for dev-facing products)
Time-to-Value Path
The critical metric: how long from discovery to first meaningful output?
Discovery → Install → Configure → First success → "Aha" moment
Each step should be:
- One command where possible (install)
- Zero config for the default case (configure)
- Copy-pasteable quickstart (first success)
- Visibly valuable output (aha moment)
DX Anti-Patterns
- Requiring account creation before trying the product
- Multi-page setup instructions before any value
- "Coming soon" features prominently displayed
- Requiring specific environment/OS without stating upfront
- Error messages that say what went wrong but not how to fix it
Competitive Analysis Methodology
Research Protocol
For each identified competitor:
- Landing page analysis: What do they lead with? What's the hero message? What's the CTA?
- Pricing analysis: What model? What's the free tier? Where do they gate?
- Documentation analysis: How's the quickstart? API reference completeness? Example quality?
- GitHub analysis (if open source): Stars, forks, recent activity, issue response time, contributor count, release cadence
- Community analysis: Search for "[product name] vs" discussions, reviews, complaints, praise
- Technical analysis: What's their architecture? What trade-offs did they make? Where are they strong/weak technically?
Comparison Matrix Template
| Dimension | Our Product | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|-----------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Core value prop | | | | |
| Target audience | | | | |
| Pricing model | | | | |
| Free tier | | | | |
| Key differentiator | | | | |
| Weakness | | | | |
| GitHub stars | | | | |
| Last release | | | | |
| Docs quality | | | | |
| Community size | | | | |
Commands
/product:audit — Research-driven assessment of product positioning and readiness/product:position — Guided positioning exercise with competitive research/product:brief — Generate product one-pagers and pitch content from research + positioning
Related Skills
- workflow —
/workflow:audit assesses code/test/infrastructure quality, which feeds into product completeness signals
- visual-design — UI polish patterns that contribute to product delight
- qa — Test coverage as a product trust/quality signal
