SKILL.md
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Core Principles
1. Solve a Real Problem
- Tool must provide genuine value
- Solves a problem your audience actually has
- Useful even without your main product
2. Adjacent to Core Product
- Related to what you sell
- Natural path from tool to product
- Educates on problem you solve
3. Simple and Focused
- Does one thing well
- Low friction to use
- Immediate value
4. Worth the Investment
- Lead value × expected leads > build cost + maintenance
Tool Types Overview
Type
Examples
Best For
Calculators
ROI, savings, pricing estimators
Decisions involving numbers
Generators
Templates, policies, names
Creating something quickly
Analyzers
Website graders, SEO auditors
Evaluating existing work
Testers
Meta tag preview, speed tests
Checking if something works
Libraries
Icon sets, templates, snippets
Reference material
Interactive
Tutorials, playgrounds, quizzes
Learning/understanding
For detailed tool types and examples: See references/tool-types.md
Ideation Framework
Start with Pain Points
-
What problems does your audience Google? - Search query research, common questions
-
What manual processes are tedious? - Spreadsheet tasks, repetitive calculations
-
What do they need before buying your product? - Assessments, planning, comparisons
-
What information do they wish they had? - Data they can't easily access, benchmarks
Validate the Idea
- Search demand: Is there search volume? How competitive?
- Uniqueness: What exists? How can you be 10x better?
- Lead quality: Does this audience match buyers?
- Build feasibility: How complex? Can you scope an MVP?
Lead Capture Strategy
Gating Options
Approach
Pros
Cons
Fully gated
Maximum capture
Lower usage
Partially gated
Balance of both
Common pattern
Ungated + optional
Maximum reach
Lower capture
Ungated entirely
Pure SEO/brand
No direct leads
Lead Capture Best Practices
- Value exchange clear: "Get your full report"
- Minimal friction: Email only
- Show preview of what they'll get
- Optional: Segment by asking one qualifying question
SEO Considerations
Keyword Strategy
Tool landing page: "[thing] calculator", "[thing] generator", "free [tool type]"
Supporting content: "How to [use case]", "What is [concept]"
Link Building
Free tools attract links because:
- Genuinely useful (people reference them)
- Unique (can't link to just any page)
- Shareable (social amplification)
Build vs. Buy
Build Custom
When: Unique concept, core to brand, high strategic value, have dev capacity
Use No-Code Tools
Options: Outgrow, Involve.me, Typeform, Tally, Bubble, Webflow
When: Speed to market, limited dev resources, testing concept
Embed Existing
When: Something good exists, white-label available, not core differentiator
MVP Scope
Minimum Viable Tool
- Core functionality only—does the one thing, works reliably
- Essential UX—clear input, obvious output, mobile works
- Basic lead capture—email collection, leads go somewhere useful
What to Skip Initially
Account creation, saving results, advanced features, perfect design, every edge case
Evaluation Scorecard
Rate each factor 1-5:
Factor
Score
Search demand exists
___
Audience match to buyers
___
Uniqueness vs. existing
___
Natural path to product
___
Build feasibility
___
Maintenance burden (inverse)
___
Link-building potential
___
Share-worthiness
___
25+: Strong candidate | 15-24: Promising | <15: Reconsider
Task-Specific Questions
- What existing tools does your audience use for workarounds?
- How do you currently generate leads?
- What technical resources are available?
- What's the timeline and budget?
Related Skills
- lead-magnets: For downloadable content lead magnets (ebooks, checklists, templates)
- cro: For optimizing the tool's landing page
- seo-audit: For SEO-optimizing the tool
- analytics: For measuring tool usage
- emails: For nurturing leads from the tool