Narrow broad customer categories into specific, reachable who-where segments for customer discovery, positioning, traction tests, sales outreach, or SEO personas.
SkillScore96Maintained
Automatic
◆Product Management pack
Last verified 8/15/2026
What it changes
Passed 22 of 23 test cases with the skill, and 5 of 23 without it.
Without skill22%
With skill96%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
The output begins with a main header '# Customer Segment Slicing'.
Candidate slices are evaluated on Reachability, Value, Urgency, Consistency, and Fit.
The scoring matrix includes Reachability, Value, Urgency, Consistency, and Fit columns.
and 23 more in the full report
17 fixed5 passed either way1 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+74 pp
Tokens
-1%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-22%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v122 of 23 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 17 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 17
Prompt
We are building an automated expense management tool, but targeting 'small businesses' is giving us conflicting feedback. Help us break down this audience using a segment slicing approach. Format your response with our broad starting audience, a table comparing candidate sub-segments across their goals, access locations, current behaviors, and evaluation criteria, a single recommended starting target defined as a who-where pair, a detailed explanation of why this slice was selected, and three specific outreach sources to contact next.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
The Candidate Slices table includes scoring columns for Reachability, Value, Urgency, Consistency, and Fit.
Missed
Passed
The recommended starting target is specified as a who-where pair.
Passed
Passed
The explanation section includes bullet items for strong shared motivation, easy access path, evidence to gather, and risks.
Missed
Passed
case-01 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md76 linessingle file
Customer Segment Slicing
Use this skill before customer conversations, traction tests, sales outreach, or
persona work when the target customer is too broad to produce consistent
evidence. A useful segment is a who-where pair: who has the problem and where
the team can find them.
Source Traceability
Primary source: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, especially chapters 6-7.
Guidance is paraphrased for this MIT repo; authoring notes used converted EPUB
lines 2791-3610.
Slicing Workflow
Start with the broad audience or market.
Split by demographics, role, use case, behavior, buying context, urgency, or
current workaround.
For each slice, state the motivation or problem that makes them care.
Keep slicing any group that still produces mixed goals or feature requests.
Add where to find each group: communities, events, tools, platforms, job
titles, search queries, partners, directories, or physical locations.
Score the slices by reachability, expected value, urgency, consistency, and
team fit.
Pick one starting segment for the next discovery or traction pass.
Useful Segment Tests
Ask:
Would most people in this slice share the same problem or goal?
Can we find at least five of them this week?
Do they already spend time, money, attention, or reputation on this problem?
Would their feedback point toward one product direction rather than many?
Are there hidden stakeholders, buyers, users, or partners?
Is this slice narrow enough to learn from but valuable enough to matter?