메뉴
Audit your product's path from first use to first delight ("wow moment"), then systematically optimize time, friction, and drop-off points. Walks through identifying your wow, mapping the funnel, instrumentation, blockage analysis, and targeted optimization strategies. Based on David Skok's "Time to Wow" framework.
Codex 또는 Claude로 설치 이 Prompt를 복사해 Codex, Claude 또는 다른 어시스턴트에 붙여 넣으면 Skill 페이지를 검토하고 설치를 진행할 수 있습니다.
SOC 직업 분류 기준
| name | sys:time-to-wow |
| description | Audit your product's path from first use to first delight ("wow moment"), then systematically optimize time, friction, and drop-off points. Walks through identifying your wow, mapping the funnel, instrumentation, blockage analysis, and targeted optimization strategies. Based on David Skok's "Time to Wow" framework. |
| argument-hint | [product/feature name, or path to existing funnel doc] |
Companion skill — not from the book. Derived from David Skok's (General Partner, Boston VC) "Time to Wow" framework for optimizing the trial-to-customer funnel.
"Wow! is the moment in a free trial where your buyer suddenly sees the benefit they get from using your product" and commits to purchase.
Most founders obsess over features. Most customers care about one thing: Does this solve my problem, and how fast can I tell?
The gap between "installed" and "wow" is where most trials die. Users abandon before they ever reach the moment where the product becomes real to them. This is not a marketing problem. It is not a pricing problem. It is a product problem.
Shortening "time to wow" is one of the highest-leverage moves you can make. Every day shorter means higher trial-to-customer conversion, lower cost of acquisition, and faster path to repeatable growth.
Your Wow! to Work Ratio must be high.
Users will tolerate friction — but only if the reward is worth it. If they have to jump through ten hoops to see the payoff, most will quit on hop three. Your job is to:
Ideally both.
Before you optimize, you need to see clearly. Ask yourself:
If you cannot answer these clearly, this skill walks you through. If you can, this skill helps you optimize.
We will work through five phases. Your answers drive the audit; the framework is just the scaffolding.
This is harder than it sounds. Most founders conflate "wow" with "feature" or "outcome."
Wow is the specific moment when a buyer realizes the product will solve their problem. It is usually one of two shapes:
Ease-based wow: "I did X in 30 seconds and it worked perfectly." Example: User uploads a CSV, sees their data instantly visualized.
Data-based wow: "I saw something I did not expect, and it is valuable." Example: User runs the analysis and sees a revenue leak they never knew existed.
I will ask:
Now diagram the path from "user lands" to "wow happens."
This is a visual exercise. List every step a trial user must complete:
(Your steps will be different; this is just an example.)
I will ask:
You cannot optimize what you do not measure.
At each funnel step, track two metrics:
| Metric | Definition | What It Tells You |
|---|---|---|
| Flow | Number of trial users entering this step | Drop-off volume |
| Conversion | % of users completing this step (reaching the next one) | Where friction lives |
Example:
Step 1 (Sign up): 100 users → 85 complete (85% convert)
Step 2 (Confirm email): 85 users → 60 complete (71% convert)
Step 3 (Create workspace): 60 users → 40 complete (67% convert)
Step 4 (See wow): 40 users → 30 complete (75% convert)
...
Trial → Customer: 30 users → 8 convert (27% become paying customers)
The steps with the lowest conversion rate are your blockage points.
I will ask:
For each step with low conversion (< 70% is a red flag), ask: Why?
There are only three reasons users drop off:
| Reason | What It Means | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Friction | The step is too hard or complicated | Requires import, unclear UI, needs data they don't have |
| Concern | User has a hesitation or objection | "Will my data be safe?" "Does this work with our system?" |
| Motivation | Unclear why this step matters | User doesn't see how it leads to wow |
For each blockage point, I will ask:
Once you have identified blockage points, you have four levers:
I will walk you through each blockage point and help you pick which levers apply.
Skok's benchmark: When you optimize correctly, you should see:
If you hit 80/80/<5min, you have a repeatable, scalable trial funnel. Everything that comes after is just volume.
Tell me:
We will work through the nine-question audit, map your funnel, identify blockages, and build an optimization playbook.
Let's shorten time to wow.
Rank a list of ideas, initiatives, features, or life decisions by scoring 2-4 dimensions on a coarse 1-5 scale. The simplest matrix that still beats gut-feel ordering. Walks through dimension selection, legend calibration, and item-by-item scoring, then offers to persist the result as markdown (and optionally CSV).
Walk through every cost and revenue assumption in your business model using structured checklists. Surfaces hidden risks, flags unknowns, and builds a complete assumptions map.
Identify and break the biggest bottleneck in your startup using a diagnostic loop based on Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. Walk through a five-step process to find what is limiting your throughput and systematically fix it.
Self-assessment across four dimensions — Skills, Experience, Leadership, Doing Hard Things — on a 2x2 of Capability vs. Willingness. From Chapter 2 of Save Your Startup by Rick Manelius.
Break a large goal down into a connected hierarchy from decade-level vision to today's next action. Systematically chunks across seven time horizons so every daily effort connects to the bigger picture.
Work through a hard decision by naming fears, writing mitigations, and rating actual severity. Adapted from Tim Ferriss's fear-setting framework with a numerical rating system by Rick Manelius. From Chapter 7 of Save Your Startup.