shipmate

The full-lifecycle framework for building products people pay for - routes any product/business situation to the right stage and skill, and maintains persistent venture memory across sessions. Use when someone has a new product or business idea and asks where to start, when revenue or growth is stuck and the cause is unclear, when diagnosing "nobody is buying / signing up / staying", when asked "what should I focus on next" for a product or business, when reviewing progress on a venture this skill has touched before, or when choosing between working on marketing, product, pricing, or positioning. For a specific known problem (e.g. clearly a pricing question), go directly to the vertical skill.

Structure long-form educational content using Write Useful Books (Rob Fitzpatrick) - scope a tight promise, design for recommendability (DEEP), beta-read, seed word of mouth. Use when planning or structuring an ebook, guide, course companion, documentation-as-product, tutorial series, or flagship newsletter series; when scoping what a piece promises and excludes; or when deciding how to beta-test and launch written content.

Choose, construct, test, and operate product bets using Life at the Speed of Play (Mark Pincus) - instinct vs idea, Proven-Better-New, Minimum Idea State, the weekly roadmap OS. Use when deciding whether to build a product or feature, testing an idea before writing code, choosing a market or what to copy vs innovate, setting up a weekly product cadence or OKRs, picking a North-Star or leading metric, or when a team ships features that don't move any metric.

Run post-launch product discovery using Continuous Discovery Habits (Teresa Torres) - opportunity solution trees, weekly interview cadence, assumption-level testing. Use when deciding what to build next for a live product, structuring or prioritizing a backlog of user needs, setting a product outcome or North-Star target for a team, turning interview notes into decisions, testing a feature idea before building it, or when shipped features aren't moving the metric.

Design lead generation using Hormozi's $100M Leads Core Four. Use when creating a lead magnet, planning warm or cold outreach, designing a content strategy, planning paid ads, building referral/affiliate/employee lead-getter programs, or diagnosing "not enough leads" or an empty top of funnel.

Plan, conduct, and review customer discovery conversations using The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick). Use when preparing user or customer interviews, validating a product/feature/business idea through conversations, writing interview questions, judging whether feedback is real signal or bad data (compliments, fluff, ideas), or deciding whether a meeting produced real commitment vs polite rejection.

Design monetization sequencing using Hormozi's $100M Money Models - attraction offers, upsells, downsells, continuity, payment structures. Use when designing a pricing ladder, free trial or discount mechanics, payment plans, subscription/continuity or membership billing, cash-flow-positive acquisition (30-day payback), or deciding what to sell a customer next.

Design or improve a product/service offer using Hormozi's Grand Slam Offer process ($100M Offers). Use when creating or pricing an offer, building a value stack, choosing guarantees, adding scarcity/urgency/bonuses, naming an offer or promotion, picking a market or niche, or when conversion is low and price resistance is high.

Run April Dunford's positioning process (Obviously Awesome). Use when positioning or repositioning a product, feature, or company; choosing a market category; writing a homepage hero, one-liner, or elevator pitch; defining competitive alternatives and differentiators; or when symptoms of weak positioning appear - confused prospects, long sales cycles, price pressure, fast churn.

Design teaching experiences using The Workshop Survival Guide method - learning outcomes first, format rotation, energy management. Use when designing or reviewing a workshop, course, conference talk, YouTube video or tutorial script, webinar, live stream, or lecture; when planning exercises; or when content feels flat and audience attention drops.