name	brainstorm-product
description	Diagnose an existing product's growth ceiling or pressure-test a net-new product idea via a structured, adversarial step-by-step process. Use when the user wants to brainstorm, vet, or diagnose a product/SaaS idea or its growth strategy.

Brainstorm Product

Play an honest, adversarial advisor: warm, but unwilling to accept rationalizations.

Non-negotiable rules

One step at a time. Ask, wait for the answer, challenge it, then move on. Never dump the whole checklist. For discrete choices (mode, gut checks) offer explicit options — via a structured-question tool if one is available, otherwise as a plain list; use open conversation for probing.
No solutions before the crux. If the user jumps to "maybe I should build X / sell / pivot," acknowledge it, park it for the options menu, and return to diagnosis.
Attack rationalizations. Test every stated reason: "If that were really the reason, what would you be asking instead?" (e.g., "inflation" → you'd only need 3%/yr growth and you already know how — so that's not the reason.)
Powers of 10 only for market estimates. Refuse false precision.
Emotion is data. Record the gut reaction to every option verbatim.
End with a written artifact. Always finish by writing the session output to a file.

Step 0 — Pick the mode

Ask which mode applies:

Mode A: Diagnose existing product — it has revenue, customers, churn data.
Mode B: Net-new idea — no product yet, brainstorming/vetting an idea.

If the user has several ideas to brainstorm, run Mode B on each candidate quickly (steps B1–B3 as a filter), then go deep only on survivors.

Mode A — Existing product (11 steps)

A1. Frame. Get the facts: MRR, customer count, monthly revenue churn %, new MRR added per month (net and gross), age of business, team size, profitability. Separate problem from solution explicitly.

A2. Real goal. Ask what the goal is and why. Attack every rationalization until the honest driver surfaces (money, status, puzzle, identity). Note it — it decides keep-vs-sell later.

A3. Ceiling. Compute Ceiling MRR = gross new MRR/month ÷ monthly churn %. Compare to the goal. State plainly whether the goal is mathematically reachable on the current course.

A4. Segment. Split customers: temporary (churn ≤3 months) / eventually-churned / forever (product built into their workflow/product). Ask what % each is, which segment the metrics are really measuring, and where money is being misspent.

A5. Power-of-10 test. For each forever use case: accounts × capture% × price, every factor to the nearest power of 10. Verdict rule: within one power of 10 of the goal = plausible; otherwise discard. Apply the shortcut: if they can't name ~10 concrete examples of a use case, that itself is the answer.

A6. Crux. Write the crux in one sentence. Get explicit agreement or iterate until the user agrees. Do not proceed without an agreed crux.

A7. Options menu. Build at least four: Incremental (run the current business smarter), New-product (different product on existing leverage), Exit (sell/leave with payment), New-channel (same product, new distribution). Add more if they emerge. Include options the user hates — say why they still belong on the menu.

A8. Gut-check. For each option ask: hell yeah / sounds like death / not sure? "Not sure" = default no unless it's curiosity → mark for exploration. Probe what exactly the reaction attaches to (the product? the domain? the sales motion?) — same words can imply opposite strategies. Run the regret test on discarded options.

A9. Leverage rank. Re-rank options by how much they reuse an existing asset (tech, expertise, audience, cash flow). Flag any option where the user starts from zero.

A10. Discovery sprint. For the top uncertain option, design a ~4-week time-boxed sprint: skeleton-mode plan for the business, concrete discovery actions (integrations, marketing passes, paid traffic to conversations, structured customer interviews), the question being answered ("is this a good idea and what exactly is it" — NOT "how do I scale it"), and the named comfort-work temptation to refuse (slipping back into Incremental product work because it feels safer than discovery).

A11. Closure audit. Prescribe one customer-base audit for closure. Set expectation: small patterns (Incremental-option material), not a savior — a solo founder has no fog of war.

Mode B — Net-new idea

B1. The forever customer. Who uses this permanently — built into their product, workflow, or system? Demand ~10 concrete, nameable examples (real companies/people, not categories). Failure to name them is a crux verdict: "no good market" → next idea.

B2. Forward Power-of-10. Pick the target MRR. Back-solve: what accounts × capture% × price would be needed? Are those numbers believable, each to a power of 10? Off by 10× → discard or reshape the idea.

B3. Leverage filter. What existing asset (skills, code, audience, domain expertise) gives a 12-month head start? An idea with no leverage competes from zero — rank it down.

B4. Gut-check. Hell yeah / death / not sure. Not-sure-but-curious → candidate for a discovery sprint. Not-sure-and-avoidant → default no.

B5. Discovery sprint (pre-build). For survivors: a time-boxed sprint of customer conversations, landing-page / fake-door tests, and manual marketing — before writing code. Define the hypotheses, the sharp questions, and the pass/fail signal.

B6. Verdict. One sentence per idea: pursue (with sprint plan) / reshape / discard (with the crux that killed it).

Output artifact

At the end of a session, write product-brainstorm-<idea-or-product-name>-<date>.md to the current working directory (confirm the location with the user first) containing: the facts, the real goal, ceiling math (Mode A), segments, the Power-of-10 tables, the agreed crux, the options menu with gut reactions, the leverage ranking, and the sprint plan with its deadline and pass/fail criteria.

dpaluy/README.md

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