Readiness check

Anyone can find people who might buy. The useful question is who's ready now.

In most markets only about 5 in 100 people are ready to buy at any given moment. The other 95 aren't wrong for you. They just aren't looking yet. A founder with a few minutes a day should spend them on the five, and this skill helps you tell them apart from what people actually wrote.

What you need

1. A short description of who your customer is and what you sell. The who-buys-from-me skill gives you one.
2. The person's post, comment or bio, with a link.
3. When they posted it, if you know.

Steps

1. Read what they said, not what the thread is about. A comment under a post about a problem isn't the same as having the problem. Judge the person by their own words.
2. Ask whether they'd buy this or sell it. Plenty of people talking about a topic are consultants, agencies or founders with a competing product. They can be great to know. They aren't customers.
3. Look for movement. Readiness shows up as someone doing something about the problem: asking for a recommendation, comparing options, saying they've tried something that didn't work, mentioning a deadline or a budget. Someone who only fits the description, without any of that, is a "later".
4. Check the date. A post from this week is a conversation you can join. A post from last year tells you about the kind of person they are, not what they need today.
5. Decide, and say why. Put them in one of three groups:
   • Ready now: right person, doing something about the problem, recently.
   • Later: right person, no sign they're looking yet. Worth following, not messaging.
   • Not a customer: wrong person, or on the selling side.

Output

Verdict: <ready now / later / not a customer>
Why: <one or two sentences, based on what they wrote>
What they're doing about it: <their own action, if any>
Worth responding to: <the part of their post you could genuinely help with>
Next step: <reply in public / follow / skip>

For several people, list the "ready now" group first and keep it short. If nobody is ready today, say so.

Rules

• Never fill gaps with guesses. If the post doesn't say, you don't know.
• "Ready now" is a reason to be helpful, not a reason to pitch.
• Be honest about the ratio. Most people you check won't be ready, and that's what makes the ones who are worth your time.

Example

You sell: a tool that helps solo founders find their first customers.

Post: "Shipped my habit tracker three weeks ago. Product Hunt gave me 40 upvotes and 3 downloads. Is it the product or am I just bad at marketing? What did you do to get your first 100 users?"

Verdict: ready now
Why: A solo founder who launched recently, tried one thing that didn't work, and is asking how others found users.
What they're doing about it: asking for approaches after a launch that didn't bring users
Worth responding to: the gap between upvotes and downloads
Next step: reply in public with something useful

With MyPip (coming)

Finding the people who are ready, across thousands of communities, is MyPip's whole job. When the MyPip MCP is live, this skill will be able to start from the people MyPip found for you today.