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Help users de-risk new product bets by testing core assumptions, building low-fidelity prototypes, and gathering high-signal evidence before investing heavy engineering resources.
Passed 18 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 15 of 22 without it.
and 1 more in the full report
3 fixed15 passed either way4 still failing0 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
One of 3 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
We created a new design tool feature that reorganizes layer panels slightly differently. Users say 'that looks nice', but nobody is using it in their daily workflow. Why is this feature failing to get traction?
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| Explains that the feature lacks significant workflow compression or a visible superpower for the user. | Missed | Passed |
| Recommends measuring whether the solution noticeably reduces the number of steps in the user's existing workflow. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
Stop building things people don't want by moving from opinion to evidence-based development.
Help the user with idea validation using insights from 31 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.
Bangaly Kaba: "Someone says, 'Hey, you know what? This would be great to build.' And you go pull data to go justify why that would be great to build. Call that identify, justify, execute. First you have to really understand from first principles what is actually going on."
True de-risking starts with understanding the core problem from first principles before looking for data to justify a specific solution.
Grant Lee: "We would have an idea in the morning, come up with some sort of functional prototype, recruit a bunch of people that are legitimately good prospective users, but have zero skin in the game, ship fast so people can start playing with it. In the afternoon, we're already running pretty full scale experiment."
Build functional prototypes within hours of conceiving an idea to maintain speed and identify usability flaws before wasting development cycles.
Gustaf Alstromer: "If I drill down what makes companies fail, it's quite simple. It's just like they don't talk to users, which means they don't find product market fit. And if they don't find product market fit, nothing else really matters."
Achieve product-market fit by talking to customers directly and immediately to learn if you are building something people actually want.
Oji Udezue: "So the zone of benefit works as a framework because people will not pay for things that don't either really shrink the workflow that they're doing or doesn't give them superpower. So the same amount of time, but twice as much output. But the most important thing is that it has to be noticeable."
A problem is only worth building for if your solution offers a visible and massive compression of the existing customer workflow.
test cases passed, vs 15 / 22 without
More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.