# positioning-and-story

Builds positioning and a narrative where the developer is the hero and a real trend is the villain. Useful when copy sells the product instead of the problem.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · ★ 327
- Author: AIDevGTM
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder/tree/HEAD/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-10-19
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/positioning-and-story

## What it does

The skill hands out four roles: hero, villain, wise advisor, and the inciting event that forces action now. The hero is the developer. The villain is a trend that makes the pain worse daily. Your product is the weapon the advisor brings.

Three story parts follow Frankl's shape: inciting event, obstacles told as small before/afters with a measured result, then resolution. A four-level ladder ranks differentiation, from feature claims up to naming a problem nobody else has put into words. The decision tree is blunt: if you can state the problem in the user's language, work at level 4; if not, drop to level 3 and lead with a segment and its trigger.

The skill also lists mistakes that look reasonable — the product cast as hero, a story with no antagonist, the word “platform” that developers read as months of integration risk. A 30-minute checklist closes it out: one sentence with hero, villain and inciting event; a grade for your current differentiation; a rewritten headline where the developer is the subject and the problem comes first. The frameworks come from dev-tool GTM work rather than general marketing books.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --skill 04-positioning-and-story -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/04-positioning-and-story/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --skill 04-positioning-and-story -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --skill 04-positioning-and-story -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder 04-positioning-and-story
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --skill 04-positioning-and-story -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --path skills/04-positioning-and-story
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder --skill 04-positioning-and-story -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder/tree/HEAD/skills/04-positioning-and-story/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- state the problem before listing product features
- pull a villain out of trends already gathered in user interviews
- grade your positioning against four levels of differentiation
- rewrite a headline so the developer is the subject
- find a segment and trigger when no named problem exists yet

## Example prompts
- Run the positioning-and-story skill and write one sentence with hero, villain and inciting event for our dev tool
- Grade our current positioning on the four differentiation levels and tell me what blocks level 4
- Rewrite our homepage headline: developer as subject, problem before product

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

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BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE 8be4a109773213ad
```text
---
name: positioning-and-story
description: Build a positioning and narrative where the developer is the hero and a real trend is the villain. Use when the messaging describes the product instead of the problem, sounds like every competitor, or has no urgency because nothing is at stake.
---

# Positioning & story

> Your story is boring without a villain. And you are not the hero of it. The developer is. You're the wise advisor who hands them a better weapon.

**Use this when:** your homepage explains what your product *does* before it names the problem, your positioning is interchangeable with three competitors, or nobody feels any urgency to act now.

## The core idea

Developers don't buy features; they hire a tool to defeat something that's making their life worse. Get the roles right:

- **Hero** = the developer (never the vendor, never the product)
- **Villain** = the undeniable *trend* making the pain worse every day
- **Wise Advisor** = you, arriving with a gift (the product)
- **Inciting event** = the change in the world that forces the hero to act *now*

No villain → no urgency → no story → no conversion.

## Framework: the 3-part story (Frankl)

1. **Inciting event**: introduce the hero and the villain; the world changed and the hero can't stay put.
2. **Obstacles**: a series of specific challenges, each solved with your help, best told as mini before/afters: *"Before X, we had [problem]. Now [measured result]."*
3. **Resolution**: villain defeated (for now), specific results, hero shares the wisdom → that's your testimonial.

**The benchmark (EngFlow):**
> *"Slow builds waste your time. Standard build tools can't handle today's codebases. Speed up builds now to keep engineers in flow."*

- Pain: slow builds waste your time
- Villain: standard tools can't handle modern complexity
- Hero: engineers, kept in flow
- Wise Advisor: the build experts

Good villains: cloud-cost sprawl · tool fragmentation · compounding tech debt · flaky pipelines · observability gaps · manual deploys · YAML sprawl · agents you can't trust in prod.

## Framework: the 4 levels of differentiation (Frankl)

Compete as high up this ladder as you can. Feature wars are a race to the bottom.

| Level | Type | Sounds like | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feature | "we have X, they don't" | D |
```
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