FOUNDER DECODE FORM — STANDARD
Lab89 method. Answer before looking at any data.

This is the generic version. Prompt 2 will build you one tailored to
your brand's stage, which is better. Use this if you would rather
work on paper and skip the AI entirely.

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BEFORE YOU START

Close your analytics. Close your website. Close your competitors.
Once you have seen the numbers you start explaining your brand in
terms of what the numbers seem to want, and the version worth
capturing is the one that exists before the dashboard gets a vote.

Write badly, at length, in your own words. Answer out loud into a
voice recorder if you can - people write in marketing language and
speak in their own.

If an answer sounds like it could appear in a competitor's deck,
you have written the tidy version. Write the other one underneath.
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1. What problem does this product solve, in your own mind?
   Not the marketing answer. The one you would give a friend who
   asked why you bothered.



2. Who did you build it for? Describe them like a real person, not
   a persona.
   A persona has a name, an age and a job title. A real person has
   opinions, a specific annoyance, and a reason they have not
   solved this already.



3. What do you wish more people understood about this product?
   The thing you explain over and over. That repetition means your
   expression layer is not carrying it.



4. What do competitors get wrong about this category?
   Be specific and slightly unfair. This question produces more
   usable positioning than any other on the list.



5. What have you tried that felt off-brand? Why did it feel that
   way?
   The wince is data. You are describing a boundary you hold but
   have probably never written down.



6. What has worked, even a little? Why do you think it worked?
   What worked is a fact. Why it worked is a hypothesis, and the
   hypothesis is the more interesting half.



7. Describe the brand in three words.
   Then check: could a direct competitor use the same three? If
   yes, they are category words, not brand words. Try again.



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THE GOLDEN QUESTION — answer this last, and only last

How would your dream customer describe this product to a friend,
in their own words?

Write it as a line of dialogue. Actual speech, in a car park, to
someone who did not ask.



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STRAIGHT AFTER — answer while it is fresh

Which answer surprised you?


Which one did you feel most strongly about?


Where did your language differ most from how your website talks?


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Made by Lab89. Next step: Prompt 3, Decipher.

Use this freely, including with your own clients. If you ran it and
found something, or got stuck at the diagnosis, we would like to
hear about it - no charge and no pitch attached.

  imagine@lab89.studio  ·  lab89.studio
