Unfair Advantage

The most-skipped session, and the input to everything after it. You leave with a one-liner that survives a stranger, and sixty seconds you can say out loud.

Five-minute setup

Do this before the session starts, or in the first ten minutes while the framing happens. Nothing here is required to attend.

1. Have an agent installed

   Claude Code, the Codex extension, or whatever you already run. Every skill file below is plain markdown with frontmatter — it works in anything that reads a skills directory.

2. Get the skills

   Download this session's bundle and unzip it at the root of your project. It writes into .claude/skills/ and nothing else.

   unzip -o zero-to-launch-04-positioning-and-pitch.zip -d .

3. Not sure which skill you need?

   Run /ask-santos and describe the problem in your own words. It names one skill, says why that one, and tells you what comes after it. You don't have to learn the catalogue.

4. Point it at a real product

   An idea in a notes app counts. The skills read your repo, your site and your README before asking you anything, so run them from inside the project rather than a blank folder.

5. Make somewhere to put the output

   The template repo already has the folders. If you're working in your own project, a docs/gtm/ directory is fine — the skills write markdown, they don't care where.

The steps

1. 01

   Answer who it's for, uncomfortably narrowly

   /positioning-brief

   Narrow it until it feels like you're leaving money on the table. "Solo founders shipping their first paid API" beats "developers" every time.

   Done looks like: You can picture one specific person.

2. 02

   Name the real alternative

   Usually a spreadsheet, a manual process, or nothing at all — not a competitor. Get this wrong and every comparison you write is aimed at the wrong thing.

   Done looks like: The alternative is something people actually do today.

3. 03

   Translate features into outcomes

   Take your feature list and rewrite each line as what the customer gets. Most builder copy dies here, describing machinery to people who only care about the result.

   Done looks like: No line mentions your architecture.

4. 04

   Separate USPs from table stakes

   Three buckets: only true of you, merely true, table stakes you still have to say. Half of what founders call a differentiator is in bucket two.

   Done looks like: Bucket one has at least one item and you'd bet money it's accurate.

5. 05

   Attach proof to every claim

   A number, a screenshot, a customer sentence, a benchmark. Claims without proof lose rooms, and receipts are 30% of the October score.

   Done looks like: Every bucket-one item has something behind it.

6. 06

   Compress to the one-liner

   For [who] who [problem], [product] is a [category] that [outcome]. Unlike [alternative], it [edge]. Then the swap test: put a competitor's name in. If it still reads true, it isn't positioning.

   Done looks like: It fails the swap test.

7. 07

   Build the sixty seconds

   /pitch-doctor

   Five beats: hook, who it's for, what it does, why you plus proof, the ask. Two versions — customers and investors want different beats four and five.

   Done looks like: You said it out loud, timed it, and cut the part you stumbled on.

What you leave with

04-positioning/ — brief.md with the one-liner, and pitch.md with both audience versions.

If you get stuck

If the one-liner keeps growing clauses, the positioning isn't settled — you're compensating with words. Go back to who it's for.

Or ask in Discord — mentors are in there between Wednesdays, and everyone else's work in progress is too.