# Positioning And Story

> 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.

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-aidevgtm-gtm-cofounder-positioning-and-story`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [AIDevGTM](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/aidevgtm)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [AIDevGTM](https://github.com/AIDevGTM)
- **Source:** https://github.com/AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder/tree/main/skills/positioning-and-story
- **Website:** https://gtmcofounder.com

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-aidevgtm-gtm-cofounder-positioning-and-story
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# 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 |
| 2 | Benefit | "we save you time" | C |
| 3 | Customer segment | "for CTOs under release pressure with compliance" | B |
| 4 | **Problem** | "the only fix for [problem no one else has named]" | A |

**Reaching Level 4 / category creation:** talk to enough TAB members (see `talk-to-users`) to surface a problem competitors haven't named, then name it so precisely your product is the obvious answer. When rivals adopt your vocabulary, they've already lost the position. (JFrog: "artifact repository" → "Universal Artifact Repository" and leapfrogged Sonatype.)

## Decision tree

```
Can you state a problem only you solve, in the user's words?
├─ YES → Level 4. Lead with the problem; name the category.
└─ NO  → Can you name a specific segment with a compelling reason?
         ├─ YES → Level 3. Lead with the ICP + their trigger.
         └─ NO  → you're stuck at feature/benefit → go run `talk-to-users`.
```

## Mistakes that look reasonable

- **Product as hero**: "ShipFast helps you…" Make the developer the subject of the sentence.
- **No villain**: all solution, no antagonist → zero urgency.
- **"Platform"**: developers hear *months of integration and risk.* Name the specific thing it does.
- **"Pleased to announce"**: nobody cares about your emotional state; a feature is not a story, a customer win is.
- **Feature-matrix positioning**: a checklist vs competitors keeps you at Level 1 forever.

## Your next 30 minutes

- [ ] Write one sentence: **hero + villain + inciting event** (steal the EngFlow shape).
- [ ] Grade your current differentiation 1-4. If it's D/C, list what would move it to B/A.
- [ ] Find the villain in your `talk-to-users` "environmental changes" bucket, it's already there.
- [ ] Rewrite your headline so the *developer* is the subject and the *problem* comes before the product.

---
Built from real dev-tool GTM experience, with frameworks from Adam Frankl (*The Developer-Facing Startup*) and Jakub Czakon (*markepear.dev*).
When a framework can't make the call, that's what a human is for: [The DevTool GTM Company](https://thedevtoolgtmcompany.com).

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [AIDevGTM](https://github.com/AIDevGTM)
- **Source:** [AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder](https://github.com/AIDevGTM/gtm-cofounder)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://gtmcofounder.com

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-aidevgtm-gtm-cofounder-positioning-and-story
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/aidevgtm
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

---
Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. Every listing is security-reviewed. Creators keep 70%.