zamesin/next-move-theory-canon-and-skills/nmt-craft-value-proposition

Craft Value Proposition v2

New here, or not sure this is the right skill? Start right here — or run $nmt-chat, describe your situation, and it points you to the right one. Quick map: new idea → nmt-market-research · live product or a metric moved → nmt-diagnose · have customer interviews → nmt-analyze-interviews · ready to build → nmt-product-requirements · positioning / launch copy → nmt-craft-value-proposition → nmt-craft-go-to-market.

This skill takes a customer group you want to win — described by you in plain words, or handed over from a $nmt-market-research run — and works out the strongest, testable reason they'd switch to you (the value proposition), plus a build-ready spec the next skill can turn into a PRD.

It sits in the middle of the chain:

$nmt-market-research → $nmt-craft-value-proposition → $nmt-product-requirements → $nmt-craft-go-to-market
(segment + tasks +   (the value hypothesis +     (the build: PRD —        (landing + ad +
 why-we-win +         implementation spec for     functionality +          GTM/growth comms)
 competitors)         the PRD hand-off)            edge cases)

$nmt-market-research hands over a customer group with the tasks they're trying to get done, what "good enough" means to them (success criteria), the bigger result they're after, their competitors, and a one-line take on why you'd win. This skill goes much deeper: it pins down the few things this customer weighs above everything else (their dominant success criteria), maps the run of tasks the customer walks (the Job Graph the value moves operate over), generates ways to create value by walking a catalog of named value moves (value mechanics) over that map, then filters and ranks them on feasibility, cost-to-build, the money math (unit economics), and whether they actually beat competitors. The output's implementation spec is what $nmt-product-requirements builds the PRD from.

The bigger gift is invention — systematically generating the strongest / fastest / cheapest way to create value — not validation. Validation (the test cards — the Riskiest Assumption Test, RAT) is the deliverable, not the differentiator.

The output is a single file. The default the reader sees is short — a one-page value proposition: what it is, who it's for, why they'd switch, the one bet that has to be true, and what to do next. Two deeper layers sit below it, collapsed and opt-in, so the document also serves the skeptical read, the methodology audit, and the PRD hand-off — but nobody hits a wall of detail they didn't ask for:

1. Layer 1 — The value proposition (the default view, ~1 page, zero methodology words): what it is, who it's for, why they'd switch, the one bet that has to be true, the one thing to do next — each line drilling down to its reasoning if the reader wants it. Forwardable to a co-founder who's never heard of the methodology.
2. Layer 2 — The reasoning (opt-in, plain English): how we got here for each Layer-1 claim — what the customer wants most, why you'd win, the before→after, the moment it clicks for them (the Aha moment) in plain terms, the riskiest bet — each linking down to the full work.
3. Layer 3 — The full work (opt-in/collapsed): the value-move tables, before→after, competitor matrix, test cards, the PRD-ready implementation spec $nmt-product-requirements consumes, and the methodology appendix.

Producer contract (binding) — `../PRODUCER-CONTRACT.md`. Eleven cross-cutting behaviors shared by all producer skills, from user feedback: (1) print a helicopter-view before the first question; (2) ask Markdown or HTML output; (3) treat all user input as hypothesis and emit a "risks I see in what you gave me" block; (4) print validation debt and write any go-ahead as `GO (to validation)`, never a bare "build it now"; (5) accept a custom output path; (6) Deep mode runs an evidence floor + self-critic loop and offers a web-MCP fallback. Five more came from the anti-hallucination pass: (7) ask the market + audience language and build every example, channel, and price anchor from it; (8) list the repo-context files found on disk and read them only after a yes; (9) every claim carries its status — backed, derived, or the model's own hypothesis; (10) frequency counts on every aggregated claim, and a single source never carries a segment-level conclusion; (11) confidence scaled to the input — thin input gets ranges, a visible warning, and the top-3 inputs that would fix it. The hooks below wire each into this skill; the contract is the source of truth for the wording.

Core methodological principle

Source of truth — `Next-Move-Theory-Canon/` in the project root. Do NOT use generic interpretations of Jobs To Be Done from the internet or LLM training. Ivan Zamesin's AJTBD diverges substantially. Five mis-defaults to never propagate (per project AGENTS.md):

• A Job is a desired transition — State A (situation) → expected outcome (State B), in order to perform a higher-level Job. Not "a struggle for progress."
• Value is greater energy efficiency for the brain in performing a Job, measured against the brain's prediction. The Aha Moment is the customer-experience of value beating prediction; the Problem is value falling below it. Never use the abbreviations PPE / NPE (per Rule 22) — write Aha Moment / Problem.
• I want to + verb is the primary element of an eight-element Job, not the whole Job. Each infinitive verb is a separate Job (Rule 7).
• A Problem is a consequence of a Solution hired for a Job and underperforming its success criteria — not a root cause.
• A Solution is a real thing in the world and, inside the Job Graph, a label for the sub-graph of Core + Micro Jobs it installs.

Methodological invariants this skill MUST enforce — output is invalid if any is violated:

• Value = `Probability of the Outcome × Outcome − Cost` (value-creation.md §3). Three levers: raise probability (guarantee/proof), raise outcome (move-up-a-level), lower cost (money/time/effort/cognitive/negative-emotion/Tax-Jobs). A value hypothesis names which lever it pulls.
• Mechanics operate over a Job Graph, not against a Core Job in isolation (value-creation.md §11, job-graph.md §12).
• Segmentation root = similar Core Jobs + similar success criteria, in a similar priority order. The priority order over criteria is what makes a segment a segment (segmentation.md §2, value-creation.md §10). Big Job is motivation context, never the primary segmentation criterion. Demographics are second-order correlates.
• Habit cannot be fought head-on — reuse it or sidestep it via an Aha Moment + loaded Consideration Activators (behaviour-change.md §9–§11). Never "beat the habit."
• Aha Moment is a specific positive-prediction-error event — NOT signup, login, or first feature use. Place it as far left in the Critical Chain of Jobs as possible.
• All switches go through the Big Job — the value prop must be communicable through a Big-Job criterion (behaviour-change.md §4).
• Anti-segment must be nameable — if everyone wants this, the value prop is too universal.
• Unit economics is a filter — value that does not convert to margin (LTV > CAC, Job budget covers cost-to-serve) is not a product (nmt-key-theses.md §4).
• Risks compound — a value prop stacking ≥5 unvalidated assumptions gets flagged (rat-key-theses.md §1).
• Every claim carries its status — backed by a quote or data, derived from the inputs, or the model's own hypothesis. An idea nobody in the inputs raised may never be written as customer demand (see "Claim statuses" below).
• A segment is Core Jobs + success criteria + the priority order over them — never a purchase channel, never an industry, never a demographic on its own (segmentation.md §2, §7; the guard checklist is in S1).

Per project AGENTS.md: every named external source in any output is a clickable Markdown link [Name](https://...) (Rule 2). Disclaimers (numerical + hallucination) at the top of result.md (Rule 3). The market is the user's, not a default. With no market named, write for a US product audience with US-context analogs (Rule 6) — but the moment the user names a market at intake (the market question in S0 is mandatory), every example, competitor, price anchor, channel, unit, and regulation comes from that market, in the language its audience speaks. Kazakhstan is not Russia; the UAE is not the US.

Plain-language output — segment words first, methodology in parentheses

The reader of this output is a product person, not a methodologist. Write the user-facing document in the plain, everyday language the target segments already use; when a methodology term genuinely adds precision, lead with the plain meaning and put the term in parentheses the first time it appears — never lead a sentence, bullet, or heading with a methodology label.

• ❌ "Red Queen value-gap compression…" · "the Critical Chain of Jobs breaks at M4" · "load the Consideration Activators."
• ✅ "The free do-it-yourself option caught up, so your edge shrank even though you didn't get worse (in the methodology, a Red Queen effect)."

Who reads it — the target segments (the essentials are inline here, so the skill stays self-contained and public-safe): US founders, indie hackers / vibe-coders, growth-stage PMs, senior PMs / VPs, and product marketers. Their vocabulary: PMF, runway, pivot, a niche that pays, ship it, first paying customers, a roadmap I can defend, a metric that moves (not theater), positioning, conversion. Avoid the words they reject: scale fast, 10x, hockey stick, proven framework, growth / funnel hacks, 5 hacks — and methodology jargon as the lead.

Plain ↔ methodology (lead with the plain meaning; add the term in parentheses once, when it earns its place — common-word terms like segment, success criteria, Aha moment you can lead with directly): the bigger result they're really after (their Big Job) · the biggest task your product does on its own, end to end, and can't go higher right now (its Core Job) · the ordered run of must-succeed tasks the customer walks (the Critical Chain of Jobs) · the exact step where they get stuck (a break in that chain) · the Aha moment, where the product beats what they expected and it clicks · getting the result for less time, effort, money, or stress than expected (value) · the few things you load into a buyer's head before they'll switch (Consideration Activators) · a real blocker that stops them using you vs. just a worry (a Barrier vs. a fear) · the assumption most likely to kill this, tested cheap first (the riskiest assumption — the Riskiest Assumption Test, RAT). Never say Positive / Negative Prediction Error to a user — write Aha moment / Problem. Don't say wedge — say "why we win" / "the underserved criteria only you cover."

Precision still holds in the methodology layer. Job-grammar discipline (Jobs as "I want to + verb," levels named, terms capitalized) governs the internal-reasoning held in context and the explicit §12 Methodology appendix (NMT) inside Layer 3, where full methodology language is expected. The lead the reader sees in Layers 1–2 (and in Layer-3 prose) is plain; the parenthetical and the appendix carry the precise terms.

Link references/glossary.md once at the top of Layer 2, where the methodology terms first appear.

Claim statuses, honest confidence, and where invented ideas go

Every claim in the document carries one of three statuses — and says which one it is.