Founder-Led Content Machine

Based on Jay Flores's public method. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Jay Flores.

When to use

Use this skill when a founder or executive has useful experience but struggles to articulate it, when polished thought leadership feels interchangeable, or when a company wants to bring an externally supported content program in-house. It also supports interview preparation, editorial reviews, and distinct content strategies for multiple executives sharing one product narrative.

The intended deliverable is a content operating brief with an interview agenda, evidence-backed idea cards, a publishable draft, and an ownership recommendation. Adapt its scope to the request: a draft review may need only one idea card and its revision rationale. A handoff assignment needs the ownership gates and documentation even if no new post is requested.

Flores's public guidance prioritizes an outside perspective that understands the business deeply while still questioning internal assumptions. Treat the founder as the source of judgment. The agent can prepare questions and test clarity, but cannot manufacture lived experience or replace a real conversation with invented answers. Work from supplied notes or transcripts; if those are absent, deliver the interview brief and mark unsupported draft sections as pending.

Read references/method.md for the substantive rules. Its phase names, readiness tests, and operating artifacts are this package's implementation choices, rather than a claimed proprietary framework. references/sources.md identifies the fetched public evidence and its limits.

Procedure

1. Define the assignment. Identify the executive, intended reader, decision the content should help them make, requested channel, and business objective. Record what success means before choosing topics. Use the intake guidance in templates/output-template.md.
2. Diagnose the constraint. Determine whether the problem is unarticulated thinking, flattened editing, or production capacity. Examine a recent draft and the founder's explanation of it. Choose a provisional ownership phase using references/method.md, section 2.
3. Build enough context to challenge intelligently. Review available product explanations, buyer objections, past decisions, and subject matter input. Separate verified knowledge from unanswered questions. Use the context and audience rules in references/method.md, section 3.
4. Prepare a decision-focused interview. Ask about a failure, a costly choice, an assumption that changed, or a boundary the executive now uses. Avoid leading questions that supply the opinion. Follow the questioning sequence in references/method.md, section 4.
5. Capture the actual judgment. For each promising answer, record the situation, alternatives, chosen path, reason, consequence, and limits. Preserve a transcript location or note reference. Fill the idea card in templates/output-template.md.
6. Apply outside challenge. Ask what an unfamiliar buyer would misunderstand, what contradicts the claim, and when the opposite choice would be reasonable. Return broad language to the interview instead of merely polishing it. See references/method.md, sections 4 and 5.
7. Draft around one useful position. Show the decision and trade-off, explain enough context for an outsider, and give the reader a bounded implication. Use examples/worked-examples.md to compare weak summaries with specific, defensible drafts.
8. Protect substance through review. Check evidence, attribution, permissions, and voice while retaining the sentence that reveals how the executive decides. If review removes it, resolve the concrete objection or choose another supported angle. Apply checklists/review-checklist.md.
9. Assign production and learning. Specify who interviews, drafts, verifies, approves, and distributes. Choose a sustainable cadence with the user, and record audience comprehension and relevant response alongside activity metrics. Use the operating fields in templates/output-template.md.
10. Make the handoff conditional. Transfer documented production work first where appropriate. Move articulation ownership only when perspective, company positions, and reader clarity are stable. Retain or restore outside challenge when needed. Use references/method.md, section 6.
11. Deliver the reviewed package. Include remaining evidence gaps, the next interview questions, ownership gates, and the review result. Publishing is a separate action governed by the user's authorization. Finish with the deliverable structure in templates/output-template.md.

Files in this skill

• SLUG.txt: Canonical package identifier.
• SKILL.md: Activation guidance and execution procedure.
• references/method.md: Principles, interview rules, editorial decisions, ownership phases, and edge cases.
• references/sources.md: Five fetched public sources, contributions, and research limitations.
• examples/worked-examples.md: Invented draft improvements and ownership decisions illustrating the rules.
• templates/output-template.md: Deliverable template with guidance for every field.
• checklists/review-checklist.md: Pass/fail checks and targeted fixes for common failures.