positioning

Ansoff Matrix — 4-quadrant framework for growth options: market penetration, market/product development, and diversification. Use when evaluating growth bets, prioritizing investment across quadrants, or weighing the risk ladder of each move.

Build, evaluate, and stress-test a Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder) across all 9 blocks. Use when designing or refreshing a business model, auditing a canvas for gaps, exploring monetization, or aligning on the model's assumptions.

Integrated go-to-market strategy spanning ICP, motion, channels, messaging, success metrics, and launch plan. Use when launching a new product, entering a new segment, or auditing why an existing GTM isn't working.

Define a sharp Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — firmographics, behavioral signals, JTBD, and buyer persona. Use when defining a new ICP, refining one from actual closed customers, or auditing why pipeline or conversion is poor.

Lean Canvas (Ash Maurya) — startup adaptation of the Business Model Canvas for capturing assumptions and unfair advantages in early-stage products. Use at the idea, pre-PMF, or pivot stage, or when you need a 1-page model fast.

Porter's Five Forces — analyze the competitive intensity and attractiveness of an industry. Use when evaluating a new market entry, diagnosing margin pressure, designing a defensive strategy, or auditing industry-level positioning.

Write or stress-test a one-page positioning brief — who we're for, what we do, why it's different, what we deliberately are not. The artifact that positioning frameworks (SWOT, Porter's, canvases) are all trying to converge on. Use when the user is defining positioning for a new product or company, feels their positioning is fuzzy, is drafting messaging or a homepage, or has been running frameworks and needs to turn the outputs into a stateable, testable page. Trigger on "our positioning," "positioning statement," "who are we for," "why us," "how do we describe ourselves," or when frameworks have run and the answer still isn't crisp.

SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for strategic positioning. Use when assessing a new market entry, a strategic pivot, a competitive response, an org restructure, or as input to annual strategic planning.

Strategyzer Value Proposition Canvas (Customer Profile + Value Map) with fit validation across problem-solution, product-market, and business-model dimensions. Use for jobs-to-be-done, pains/gains, and product-market-fit framing.