Opportunity Gap Finder

Turn an open domain, observed problem, change, capability, audience, or early idea into ranked opportunity hypotheses and a validation plan. Find valuable progress that people or organisations struggle to make, then determine whether the user has a credible way to help. Investigate before ideating and never imply that success is guaranteed.

Core Rules

1. Discover before inventing — Never present an assumed problem, demand level, market fact, or success probability as established.
2. Do not skip the problem — Trace context → actors → current behaviour → friction or blocked progress → root cause → need → opportunity mechanism.
3. Stay domain- and format-agnostic — Do not default to software, commercial ventures, or scalable products. The best response may be a service, physical intervention, practice, programme, community, research effort, policy, creative work, or a decision not to proceed.
4. Define success for this user — Clarify desired impact, income or non-financial value, available resources, timeframe, geography, risk tolerance, motivation, and ethical boundaries before ranking.
5. Ask progressively — Ask 3–6 related questions per round unless the user requests a full questionnaire or a rapid scan.
6. Follow evidence — Investigate strong signals and contradictions instead of completing a static questionnaire.
7. Compare against reality — Include direct competitors, indirect substitutes, manual workarounds, doing nothing, and failed prior attempts.
8. Separate attractiveness from confidence — A promising hypothesis with weak evidence is not a recommendation to build.
9. Prefer behaviour over opinion — Separate attention, complaints, stated intent, attempted solutions, commitment, adoption, retention, payment, and measurable impact.
10. No guaranteed-success language — Explain uncertainty, dependencies, disconfirming evidence, and the cheapest next test.

Workflow

1. Choose a mode and establish the user's pursuit criteria — references/session-rules.md.
2. Frame the search from the supplied domain, actor, problem, change, capability, asset, or idea.
3. Investigate actors, behaviour, frictions, blocked progress, causes, alternatives, and needs — references/investigation-phases.md.
4. Gather and grade relevant evidence; distinguish sourced facts, user observations, inferences, and unknowns — references/evidence.md.
5. Generate materially different opportunity mechanisms using references/archetypes.md, then screen and rank them with references/scoring.md.
6. Stress-test the leaders and choose the cheapest tests of their riskiest assumptions — references/validation.md.
7. Deliver a decision-ready brief — references/opportunity-brief.md.

Use references/questioning-logic.md to branch the interview rather than asking every question.

Output Contract

For a completed guided or evidence-assisted investigation, include:

• Pursuit criteria and scope
• Context and relevant actors, when applicable
• Current behaviour, alternatives, and non-consumption, when applicable
• Ranked frictions or blocked outcomes with evidence strength
• Root causes and outcome-focused need statements
• 3–5 distinct opportunity hypotheses, or fewer when justified
• Comparative ranking, evidence strength, consistency, resulting confidence, and kill factors
• Recommended lead opportunity and value proposition
• Smallest useful validation plan
• Unknowns, disconfirming evidence, and conditions that would change the decision
• Decision: investigate now | validate before committing | pursue a small version | monitor | reframe | reject for now

For a rapid scan, provide only:

• scope and assumed pursuit criteria,
• 2–5 provisional search territories or opportunity hypotheses,
• evidence available, evidence missing, and major caveats,
• the most useful next investigation step.

For open search, first deliver a checkpoint containing:

• pursuit criteria and accessible assets,
• 2–3 search territories with selection reasons,
• the first evidence-gathering questions for each.

A full investigation is complete only when it yields either one sufficiently supported opportunity with a validation plan or a clear conclusion that evidence does not justify pursuit and exactly what to learn next. A rapid scan or open-search checkpoint is complete when its smaller output contract is met; never present it as a validated recommendation. Do not manufacture an opportunity to satisfy the format.

Reference Index

• Modes, intake, session behaviour, and language: references/session-rules.md
• End-to-end investigation sequence: references/investigation-phases.md
• Evidence collection and confidence rules: references/evidence.md
• Screening, comparative ranking, and kill factors: references/scoring.md
• Stress tests and validation experiments: references/validation.md
• Final brief and completion rules: references/opportunity-brief.md
• Dynamic interview branching: references/questioning-logic.md
• Gap archetypes for broad solution discovery: references/archetypes.md
• Quality gate and anti-patterns: references/quality-checklist.md
• Cross-domain worked examples: references/example-cross-domain.md

When To Use This Skill

• Exploring a broad industry, community, place, technology, trend, problem, capability, or behaviour for worthwhile opportunities.
• Testing whether an early business, service, project, initiative, product, research, or creative idea addresses a meaningful gap.
• Comparing possible pursuits against evidence, alternatives, constraints, value, risk, and personal fit.
• Designing a low-cost next step before making a larger commitment.