The Shelf / Strategy / Positioning Market Map
Positioning Market Map
Forces the ICP, the competitor matrix, and a UVP that isn't fuzz. One doc, no code.
The job: turn "we validated the idea" into a positioning doc you could hand a stranger — who it's for, what they use today, how money arrives, and why you win. One markdown file in, docs/positioning.md out. No code.
Most positioning sessions with an LLM go the same way: you describe your product, it tells you your idea is great, and you end up with "for busy professionals who want to save time." That doc is worthless. This skill exists to make the agent behave like the annoying strategy partner instead — the one who asks who specifically buys, and won't accept "SMB owners" as an answer.
What it makes your agent do
- Gate on evidence. No demand proof, no positioning session. The skill refuses to polish a guess.
- Interrogate one question at a time until the ICP is a named human with a day shape, a buying committee, and a defining quote — not a category.
- Map four competitor columns, including the one everyone skips: the status quo. Most products don't lose to a rival tool; they lose to "nothing changes."
- Force a business model choice with a pricing anchor, rough unit economics, and the exact path to dollar #1.
- Drill the niche to a vertical x use-case x stage intersection small enough to win in 12 months.
- Ship a UVP in Geoff Moore form where the mechanism is specific, the "unlike" comes from the actual matrix, and the wedge claim is falsifiable. "AI-powered" is not a mechanism and the skill says so.
Who it's for
Founders and indie builders between validation and build. Agent operators who want the same positioning rigor on every project. Consultants who deliver this as client work.
Why not a free directory download
Free skill directories are full of unverified files that say "act as a marketing expert." This one encodes a specific, opinionated process — hard gates, red-flag answers, forced choices, an anti-sycophancy rule — refined across a real multi-product portfolio, and it's maintained: you get updates to this skill as the process sharpens. Read the field report below to see the exact deliverable before you pay.
Requisition it, drop it in your skills folder, run it on your current project tonight.
FIELD REPORT real output, not a promise
What the skill actually forces, excerpted from its own working material: the niche drill it runs, and the deliverable skeleton it fills in. No sample company invented — this is the gear itself, unpacked.
The niche drill (verbatim from the skill)
A niche is the intersection of vertical x use case x stage. The skill grades answers like this:
- ❌ "Marketing teams" — not a niche
- ❌ "B2B SaaS marketing teams" — still too broad
- ✅ "Series-B B2B SaaS marketing teams running outbound on Apollo with <5 SDRs" — a niche
If your answer looks like the first two, the agent keeps asking. That's the point.
The competitor matrix it requires — all four columns
| Column | What it captures | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Status quo | The workaround used today (spreadsheet + email, manual process, an agency) | The real competitor. Most products lose to "do nothing differently." |
| Direct | Tools solving the same problem the same way | Pricing anchors, parity expectations |
| Adjacent | Neighboring tools that could expand into yours | Future threat |
| Outsider | A weird angle — another industry's solution, open source, a services player | Where disruption usually comes from |
Each entry needs: name, one-liner, pricing anchor, what they get right, what they get wrong, where they're vulnerable. Then one sentence naming the vacuum all four columns leave open.
The UVP form it will not let you dodge
For [the named ICP], who [pain, from evidence], we are [category], that [unique mechanism], unlike [an entry from the matrix — no invented strawman], we [the wedge difference — falsifiable, measurable, not a vibe].
Rules enforced: "AI-powered" is rejected as a mechanism; the "unlike" must exist in the matrix; the agent must state whether the final UVP is sharp or fuzzy and why — "nice positioning" is banned output.
The deliverable
One file, docs/positioning.md: upstream read, ICP one-pager, the four-column matrix with the vacuum named, business model with pricing anchor + path to dollar #1, the niche sentence with a defensibility note, the UVP, and open questions. Draft-stamped, ready for a revise loop.
SERVICE RECORD living gear — updated as the factory learns
v1.0.0 — 2026-07-17
First issue. Ported from the factory's internal skill: sanitized for general use, methodology intact, field report captured from a real run.
Every update ships free to owners — your locker always serves the latest version.
QUESTIONS
Does this work in Claude Code, claude.ai, and Codex?›
Yes. It's a plain-markdown skill. Claude Code picks it up from ~/.claude/skills/; on claude.ai you upload it to a Project; for Codex you reference it from AGENTS.md or a skills directory. Instructions are in the QUICKSTART.
Does it write code or scaffold anything?›
No. By design it only produces docs/positioning.md. It's the thinking step before you build.
What do I need before running it?›
Some demand evidence — customer quotes, reviews, revenue, or validation notes. The skill has a hard gate: it refuses to position a product whose demand is unproven, unless you explicitly override.
How is this different from just asking an LLM about positioning?›
A bare prompt gives you agreeable mush. This skill forces one question at a time, rejects category answers, requires the 'unlike' to come from the actual competitor matrix, and requires a falsifiable wedge. The discipline is the product.