stelow-product-discovery

Product with Short Learning Cycles

This guide is a method to replace speculation with evidence, step by step. Core principle: experiment before building. Reduce uncertainty with small, fast, and cheap experiments.

"Life is too short to build something that nobody wants." — Ash Maurya

Method Structure

The process has 8 stages (not necessarily linear):

1. Find and understand the audience
2. Define the market
3. Define and prioritize solutions
4. Develop and evaluate the offer
5. Assess commitment
6. Discover the process
7. Evolve to a viable business
8. The pulse of the system: signals in tension

→ Read reference files as needed:

• references/01-experimentation-principles.md — criteria for reliable data + 6 principles
• references/02-stages-1-to-3.md — audience, market, solutions
• references/03-stages-4-to-6.md — offer, commitment, manual process
• references/04-stage-7.md — viable business, product-market fit, channels
• references/05-stage-8-signals.md — pulse of the system, signals in tension
• references/06-appendix-business-models.md — business models, open source, pricing
• references/07-appendix-strategies.md — marketplace, solutions, trust, bonuses, promotions, ads, lifecycle

When to Read Each Reference

Interaction Tool Guidelines

IMPORTANT: When the user needs to choose between predefined options, ALWAYS use the question tool (if available) with enumerated format:

• Options with short label and description
• Examples: topic selection, next steps, etc.

When question tool is not available, use enumerated text in chat (A/B/C/D or 1/2/3).

Note for this skill: This is primarily a reference/exploratory skill. If the user wants to explore a specific concept, you may ask clarifying questions to understand context before recommending which references to read or which stage to focus on.

Rules for Using This Skill

1. Never omit details — the e-book is already concise; every detail matters.
2. Use concrete examples from the method when explaining concepts.
3. Reference specific tools and tactics mentioned in the method.
4. Preserve the order and logic of stages when guiding the user.
5. Combine stages when context demands (e.g., stages 4 and 5 often go together).

Attribution

This skill is based on the e-book "Guia para criar produtos com aprendizado em ciclos curtos" (Guide to Creating Products with Short Learning Cycles) by calionauta.

Author: calionauta Substack: Practical Guide to Validate Ideas GitHub: @calionauta

This skill was translated and adapted by permission and attribution to the original author.

Original Repository: github.com/calionauta/my-opencode-config

Extended Deep-Dives (Optional)

For specialized analysis, these standalone skills are vendored in this repo under skills/ (historically published at github.com/calionauta/agent-sync-public):

Install: already vendored in this repo — no separate install needed. Note: These are optional enhancements. The core method works without them — the references/ contain all the necessary content.

Examples

Example: validate a meal-planning app idea in two weeks

Input: "I have an idea for an app. What do I do first?"

Steps:

1. Frame the riskiest assumption (will busy parents pay for planning?).
2. Pick the shortest-cycle experiment (concierge week, not a build).
3. Define abort criteria before running.

Output: Experiment plan with success/abort thresholds and next step either way.

Edge Cases

User wants to build immediately

• Slow down explicitly: name the unvalidated assumption building would bet on.

No access to users

• Proxy with adjacent audiences; mark evidence weaker.

Experiment succeeds ambiguously

• Treat as not-validated; tighten the threshold and re-run once.

Entry (mode detection)

When this skill loads, check for the stelow workflow marker:

if [ -n "$STELOW_WORKFLOW" ] && [ -n "$STELOW_STATE" ]; then
  echo "stelow: workflow mode (state=$STELOW_STATE)"
else
  echo "stelow: standalone mode (no STELOW_WORKFLOW marker)"
fi

In standalone mode (no marker), run the existing skill body unchanged. In workflow mode, skip to ### Workflow slice and emit a complete ## Hand-off (workflow mode) block at the end. See references/host-levers.md for the full marker protocol (SCOPE-9).

Hand-off (workflow mode)

stage          : context
description    : Strategic context. Market analysis, JTBD, domain detection. Gated by `context:5` (appetite/review mode): Product Spec Ga
status         : <done|partial|blocked>
artifacts      : <paths created or modified>
next-candidate : shape
gate           : none
rework-on      : setup

Workflow mode: emit the above Hand-off block verbatim, then stop. The router skill consumes the next-candidate field and calls scripts/stelow advance <next-candidate> to move state forward.

Workflow slice

Workflow mode for the context stage. Standalone behavior lives in the rest of this file (unchanged). Summary:

Strategic context. Market analysis, JTBD, domain detection. Gated by context:5 (appetite/review mode): Product Spec Gate+Auto skips; others use reduced ask. S

Primary actions (per stages.yaml): read, write. Run only the actions that produce the artifacts promised in ## Hand-off; skip anything that does not advance the workflow.