Founder post triggers

Purpose

A founder without launch results often thinks there is nothing to say. There is usually plenty: customer conversations, churn reasons, failed experiments and pricing decisions that already happened. This skill turns those into a list the founder can pick from, and keeps every post tied to a first-hand fact.

When to use

• A founder has nothing to post and does not know what to write.
• A founder asks whether a personal brand is worth building before there is traction.
• A post idea is needed from this week's work.

Route elsewhere when:

• The question is what happens after a post is published. Use post-launch-window.
• The question is a company newsletter. Use newsletter-issue-formats.

Inputs

• The founder's recent activity: customer calls, support questions, churn reasons, experiments, pricing changes, and product decisions.
• The one topic the founder will hold most posts inside.
• The audience the founder serves, in their own words.

The triggers

Customer evidence

1. The surprising sentence: a customer line that changed your view. Quote it exactly.
2. The real no: the actual reason a prospect declined, not the polite one.
3. The exit reason: why someone left, and your read of it.
4. The recurring question: one asked three times in support. Answer it in public.
5. Their words, not yours: how a customer described you to someone else.
6. The unintended use: someone using the product for something it was not designed for.

Numbers you can stand behind 7. Before and after: one conversion rate, one change, both figures. 8. The retention read: a churn figure and your honest diagnosis. 9. Channel cost direction: what a channel costs, and whether that is rising. 10. The failed experiment: what you tried, what it returned, and what you concluded. 11. The expectation gap: the forecast against what actually landed.

Decisions and reversals 12. What you cut: a feature removed, and what removing it cost. 13. The reversal: a decision your team argued you out of. 14. The thing nobody used: built, shipped, and ignored. 15. The pricing change: what moved, and why. 16. The deliberate no: a customer, segment or feature you turned down.

The product as demonstration 17. Raw output: what it just produced, unedited. 18. Before and after: the same task with and without it. 19. The hard part: a difficult problem and your solution. 20. What it refuses to do: a constraint you built on purpose.

Position and category 21. The real comparison set: who buyers actually weigh you against. 22. The disagreed belief: a received view you think is wrong. 23. The loose term, defined: a vague word, made precise. 24. The unpriced change: a market shift most people have not yet priced in.

Procedure

1. Read the founder's recent activity and pick the triggers that match it.
2. Choose one play and hold it. Four plays suit different aims: publish real numbers (triggers 7 to 11); content on an audience's pain (triggers 1 to 6 and 24); showing the product at work (triggers 17 to 20); aligning position (triggers 21 to 23). Plays combine badly, so pick one.
3. Hold most output inside one topic. As a default, about seventy percent.
4. Write the opening line from a stock form, then add one sentence of real judgment, such as "this matches what we see with our own users" or "the part everyone skips".
5. Run the pre-publish check:
   • it contains one first-hand fact: a quote, a number or a reversal;
   • someone who read the same articles could not have written it;
   • it sits inside the chosen topic;
   • it describes a process, not only an opinion;
   • every number in it can be defended unedited.

Output

• The shortlist of triggers that match the founder's recent work, with the play chosen.
• The draft post or the opening line.
• The pre-publish result.

Quality bar

Each post is anchored in a first-hand event. Numbers are defensible unedited. The chosen play is held. Watch for a draft with no first-hand fact, an announcement that says what shipped and not what it means, and waiting for results before starting.

Rules

• Anchor every post in a first-hand event from the work.
• Hold most output inside one topic.
• Never publish a number that cannot be defended, and never dress up a weak one.
• Do not wait for results before starting.