business-strategy

Business Strategy

Use this skill as a strategy-thinking system, not a consulting-report checklist.

The objective is to determine:

• what opportunity actually exists;
• where the business should play;
• how it can win;
• how the position becomes an economically attractive business;
• why the advantage can persist;
• what evidence should cause the strategy to change.

Core Principles

1. The initial idea is a hypothesis

Do not optimize the user's first concept by default. Expose its assumptions, compare genuine alternatives, and mutate the thesis when evidence supports a better formulation.

2. Separate value creation, value capture, and durability

Use this as a reasoning model, not a literal equation:

business quality ≈ value creation × value capture × durability

A large useful market can still produce a weak business if competition, buyers, suppliers, or platforms capture the surplus. Apparent pricing power without meaningful customer value can be fragile.

3. Strategy is a set of choices

A strategy should resolve real choices about customer, market, product, distribution, business model, capabilities, sequencing, and exclusions. Frameworks are lenses for making those choices, not substitutes for them.

When the user explicitly requests a named framework, apply it explicitly and faithfully using references/frameworks.md. When no framework is requested, use the native strategy questions below and invoke framework logic only when it improves the decision.

4. Research decision-changing uncertainty

Prioritize claims approximately by:

priority ≈ decision impact × uncertainty × cost of being wrong

Research should change confidence, options, or decisions—not maximize source count.

5. Generate before converging

For ambiguous strategy work, create materially different alternatives before choosing. Include different customers, buyers, jobs, layers, wedges, channels, business models, monetization models, geographies, and—when useful—different beliefs about how the market will evolve.