| name | product-lens |
| description | Product thinking tool -- validate the "why" before building, run founder reviews, audit user journeys, and prioritize features with ICE scoring. |
| origin | ECC |
Product Lens -- Think Before You Build
Product thinking framework for validating decisions before writing code.
When to Use
- Before starting any feature -- validate the "why"
- Weekly product review -- are we building the right thing?
- When stuck choosing between features
- Before a launch -- sanity check the user journey
- When converting a vague idea into a spec
Modes
Mode 1: Product Diagnostic
Asks the hard questions:
- Who is this for? (specific person, not "developers")
- What is the pain? (quantify: how often, how bad, what do they do today?)
- Why now? (what changed that makes this possible/necessary?)
- What is the 10-star version?
- What is the MVP? (smallest thing that proves the thesis)
- What is the anti-goal? (what are you explicitly NOT building?)
- How do you know it is working? (metric, not vibes)
Output: a PRODUCT-BRIEF.md with answers, risks, and a go/no-go recommendation.
Mode 2: Founder Review
Reviews your current project through a founder lens: what is this trying to be, product-market fit signals, competitive moat, and the one thing that would 10x this.
Mode 3: User Journey Audit
Maps the actual user experience: clone/install as a new user, document every friction point, time each step, compare to competitor onboarding, score time-to-value.
Mode 4: Feature Prioritization
When you have 10 ideas and need to pick 2:
- List all candidate features
- Score each on: impact (1-5) x confidence (1-5) / effort (1-5)
- Rank by ICE score
- Apply constraints: runway, team size, dependencies
- Output: prioritized roadmap with rationale
