This skill should be used when the user wants to explore who they are professionally — their distinct strengths, competitive arena, and what types of work energize or drain them. Use when someone says "I don't know how to describe what I do," "what am I best at," "help me understand my strengths," "what kind of work should I focus on," "I want to figure out who I am as a professional," "what makes me different," "what's my niche," or when the creative-business-consultant agent routes to business identity discovery. Also triggers on: "professional identity," "career strengths," "what I'm good at," "what drains me about my work," "what energizes me," "my competitive advantage," "define my space," or any request to explore professional identity and self-understanding as a creative. This is the companion to the design-your-life skill — this one focuses on the business identity, that one focuses on the life the business supports.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/unknown-creatives-coach:design-your-businessThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Guide the user through a structured exploration of who they are as a professional. This is one of two foundational skills — this one answers the question **"What am I built for?"** while design-your-life answers **"What do I need the business to do for me?"**
Guide the user through a structured exploration of who they are as a professional. This is one of two foundational skills — this one answers the question "What am I built for?" while design-your-life answers "What do I need the business to do for me?"
The conversation has two threads. Work through them naturally, not rigidly — some users will have more to say about one thread than the other. Follow the energy of the conversation, but make sure both get covered before producing the final output.
The framing here matters. The question is not "what are you good at?" — that produces generic answers. The real question is "Where do you have an unfair advantage — and in what arena?"
Everyone operates in a competitive landscape, but most creatives never consciously define theirs. The first step is helping them draw the boundaries of the arena they're playing in.
An arena is the competitive landscape the user actually operates in. It has boundaries — geographic, industry, specialization, client type — and those boundaries are a choice, not a given. Help them define theirs:
The smaller and more specific the arena, the easier it is to stand out. And defining the arena is itself a strategic act — it reveals who they see themselves competing with, which feeds directly into positioning and ICP work later.
Start with: "If you had to name the one thing you do better than anyone in your space — and define what that space actually is — what would you say?"
If they struggle, scaffold it:
If their answer is broad ("I'm good at design"), push on scope:
Once they've named something specific, explore whether they want to stay in that arena or expand:
This isn't just a strengths exercise — it's the first step toward scoping their competitive landscape. The answer here seeds the positioning and ICP conversations later.
This thread identifies what gives the user energy and what drains it across the full spectrum of running a creative business. The goal: understand which roles and activities in the business suit them so they can design around their strengths, not just their skills.
Most creatives think about their business in terms of skills — "I'm good at X, so I should do X." But being good at something doesn't mean it energizes you. A designer might be excellent at client presentations but find them exhausting. A developer might love architecture work but hate debugging. Understanding energy patterns is how you stop building a business that looks good on paper but burns you out.
Walk through the different phases and aspects of running a creative business. For each one, find out whether it energizes or drains them:
The creative work itself:
The business development side:
The client relationship:
The operational side:
The leadership question:
Use direct questions tied to specific activities:
When you hear a pattern — say, they light up talking about early-stage exploration but deflate when execution comes up — name it explicitly. The user often can't see their own patterns until someone points them out.
Builds on: life-design.md
Output: business-identity.md
When both threads have been explored and the user has surfaced enough concrete material, produce a Business Identity Summary. Ask the user before generating it: "I think I have enough to put together your business identity summary. Ready for me to pull it together, or is there anything else you want to explore first?"
Who I Am A 2-3 sentence distillation of their professional identity. Specific, not generic. Should sound like them, not like a template.
My Arena What they do better than anyone in their space, and how they define that space. Include the scope — this is a strategic statement, not a humble brag.
Energy Map What energizes them and what drains them, organized by category. Be specific — "loves early-stage exploration and client discovery calls" is useful; "likes creative work" is not.
Signals for Downstream Work Patterns you noticed that will be relevant for positioning, ICP, services, or voice work. Things like: "Your energy lights up around [type of client/project] — that's worth exploring when we get to your ideal client profile." This connects the business identity work to what comes next without forcing a sequence.
Produce the summary as clean, readable text in the conversation. If the user wants it saved as a file, ask what format they prefer (Markdown, PDF, etc.) and save it to their workspace.
Provides a checklist for code reviews covering functionality, security, performance, maintainability, tests, and quality. Use for pull requests, audits, team standards, and developer training.
npx claudepluginhub doterodesign/unknown-creatives-coach --plugin unknown-creatives-coach