Strengths & Weaknesses: Distill the facts into the attributes that matter
Convert your raw company observations into the few deep-truth attributes that matter — each tested for genericness and classified as strength, weakness, or deliberately both. Adapted from Chapter 2 of Hidden Multipliers: Carol Loves You for You.
- Input
- Your OBSERVATIONS.md of raw facts (O1, O2, …) — or a pile of observations you're ready to distill.
- Output
- A STRENGTHS-WEAKNESSES.md: distilled attributes classified as strengths (S1, S2, …) and weaknesses (W1, W2, …), each citing the observations behind it.
What this is about
A pile of honest observations isn't yet a strategy input — it's evidence waiting for a verdict. This skill runs the two moves that turn it into one. First, distill: multiple observations usually point at one deeper truth ("customers post screenshots of support wait times" becomes the attribute "slow tech support"), and a smaller set of stronger attributes is easier to hold in mind and act on. Each candidate attribute must survive the Opposite Test — if no successful company would ever claim the opposite ("we love our customers"), the attribute is banality, not strategy, and it doesn't get recorded.
Second, classify — and here the book resolves the paradox that almost any attribute can be argued both ways. Whether something is a strength or weakness is in the eye of the beholder, so the call is made with a concrete rubric: it's a strength if more than a third of the market sees it that way or some customers will buy for it alone; it's a weakness if more than a third sees it that way or it makes the product impossible for some customers, who will refuse for this reason alone. Yes to both means it's both — recorded twice, and flagged, because a both-attribute marks a place where market segments disagree and a clear strategic choice is waiting. No to both means nobody cares: the attribute is dropped, on the record, so you stop spending attention on it. The result is the exact chart your keystones, deal-breakers, and ultimately your ideal customer are derived from.
Example invocation
You can invoke the skill like this:
/asb-carol-strengths Here's our OBSERVATIONS.md from the honest-look
exercise — 19 observations. Distill it down and tell me what we're
actually working with.
The skill proposes attributes one at a time — each citing the observations behind it, each grilled with the Opposite Test, each classified with you against the rubric — and records the results in STRENGTHS-WEAKNESSES.md as you go.
One practical note: say where you're working. Name a directory (or point at your existing files) when you invoke, and the skill keeps the method's files together there — if you don't, it asks before creating anything.
From the source
Two sources form the foundation of this skill:
- As in Chapter 2 of Hidden Multipliers: Carol Loves You for You (sections "Distill Into Important Attributes" and "Classify Strengths and Weaknesses") — hiddenmultipliers.com — the merge-or-drop distillation discipline, the genericness trap, and the two-question classification rubric this skill enforces.
- The "Opposite Test" — the genericness gate: a claim means something only if a successful company could rationally claim the opposite.
Supporting sources each supply a piece of the mechanism:
- Selling to Carol: Why targeting an ICP brings 10x more customers than you expected — where these classified attributes are headed: the trade-offs Carol loves you for and everyone else weighs.
- "It's a Balance" isn't always the answer — why a both-classified attribute is a forced choice, not a compromise: when segments of the market disagree, making the clear choice is the essence of strategy.
- Specificity: A weapon of mass effectiveness — the wording bar attributes are held to: specific enough to create the edge that separates your ideal customer from everyone else.