Opportunity Solver
What It Does
Applies Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework to discover high-value product opportunities. Analyzes customer interviews to uncover unmet needs, scores opportunities by importance vs. current satisfaction, maps competitive landscapes to identify whitespace, and applies Build/Buy/Partner decision frameworks to determine the best execution path.
Iron Laws (NEVER violate)
- Job, not solution — Define the job customers are hiring your product to do. Never start with a solution looking for a problem.
- Importance × Satisfaction gap — Only pursue opportunities where Importance is HIGH and current Satisfaction is LOW. Everything else is a distraction.
- Customer voice, not your voice — Every insight must trace back to actual customer data (interview, survey, support ticket, usage data). No invented personas.
- Competitive honesty — Acknowledge where competitors are better. Wishful thinking about competitive advantages leads to wasted investment.
Red Flags (STOP immediately)
- Solution-first thinking — Discussion focuses on features without a defined job → reframe to JTBD
- Satisfaction illusion — "Customers seem happy" without quantitative satisfaction data → collect real data
- Feature factory — Building features because competitors have them, not because customers need them
- Underserved vs unserved confusion — Targeting a market that doesn't exist vs one that's poorly served
Common Rationalizations (self-deception)
- "We know what customers need, we talk to them all the time" → Confirmation bias. Structured interviews reveal surprises.
- "This competitor feature is table stakes, we need it" → Table stakes = low opportunity score. Differentiate, don't copy.
- "The market is too small to analyze" → Every market has data. If you can't find it, the market may not exist.
When To Use
- Exploring new product ideas or feature opportunities
- User says "what should we build next?"
- Analyzing why a product feature isn't gaining traction
- Competitive analysis to find market gaps
- Build vs. Buy vs. Partner decision for a capability
Human Partner Signals (escalate to human)
- Strategic pivot — Opportunity requires changing company's core value proposition → executive decision
- Market entry — Opportunity involves entering a regulated market (finance, health, defense) → legal/compliance review
- Resource commitment — Opportunity requires 3+ months of engineering investment → funding approval
- Customer access — Need to interview specific customer segments the team can't reach → sales/CS coordination
Pipeline
- Discover: conduct customer interviews (at least 12 per segment), mine support tickets and NPS comments
- Map: identify all jobs customers are trying to accomplish, group into job categories
- Score: rate each job on Importance (1-10) and current Satisfaction (1-10), calculate opportunity score
- Landscape: map competitors' solutions to each job, identify underserved jobs (high importance, low satisfaction, weak competition)
- Decide: apply Build/Buy/Partner framework to top opportunities
- Recommend: present top 3 opportunities with evidence, competitive context, and execution recommendation
Verification Checklist
Related Skills
validation-designer — Validated opportunities move to experiment designroadmap-prioritizer — Scored opportunities feed roadmap prioritizationgrill — Selected opportunities become user storiescompetitive-agent-research — Competitive landscape intelligence gathering