Brand launchpad

brand-launchpad

Reusable launch playbook. Project-agnostic. One run produces a complete brand plan for any project (digital product shop, agency service, personal handle, SaaS, info product) saved to Projects/<name>/brand/.

When to invoke

• User asks to build/launch/strategize a brand for any project or themselves
• User finishes building a product and asks how to get attention
• User asks "what should I post" or "how do I grow [X]"
• User mentions one of the 4 source thinkers (Caleb Ralston, Oren John, Harry Dry)
• User says "brand kit", "content cadence", "positioning", "hero line"

Do NOT invoke for: ad-account audits, ad copy generation, or one-off post drafting.

How to invoke (universal call patterns)

This skill is project-agnostic. It works for any of:

• Personal brand: the user themselves, no specific project
• Studio brand: anonymous or aliased handle that aggregates multiple projects
• Product brand: one shipping product, SaaS, app, or info product
• Service brand: agency, freelance offer, consulting practice
• Open-source / repo brand: a library or framework with a maintainer
• Newsletter / podcast brand: pure content asset, no product yet

Invocation shapes the user can use:

build a brand for <project name>
launch <project name> publicly
make <project> a brand
brand kit for <person or studio name>
personal brand for me
positioning strategy for <project>
30-day content plan for <project>

Default project resolution order:

1. If the user names a project that has Projects/<name>/, use that.
2. If the user names themselves or "me", treat as personal brand and write outputs to Projects/personal-brand/ (create if missing).
3. If the user names a brand-new project, create Projects/<name>/ and the brand/ subfolder.
4. If ambiguous, ask one clarifying question, then proceed.

Brand-type variants

Choose the right variant before Step 1. Each variant changes a few defaults but the 11 steps are identical.

Variant	Handle default	Cadence floor	Format weighting	Notes
Personal (Living Portfolio)	user's real name	1 post/month, 1 email/quarter	Format C (showcase) heavy	Oren's default path
Personal (Full Creator)	user's real name	3 posts/week min, daily ideal	Even 4:2:1 across A/B/C	Brier's full-time path
Studio (anonymous)	@studioname	3 posts/week min	Format A + B, no Format C (faceless)	Oren's anonymous studio path
Product	@productname	Daily on launch month, 3/wk after	Format A (BTS) heavy on launch	Push BOF to 2/wk in launch month
Service	user's real name + service phrase	3 posts/week	Format B (carousel) heavy	LinkedIn primary, not Instagram
Open-source	@reponame or maintainer name	2 posts/week	Format B + B (mostly carousels)	GitHub README is part of brand kit
Newsletter / podcast	newsletter or show name	1 episode/wk + 3 promo posts	Format C clip-heavy	Each episode generates 5 to 7 posts

When in doubt, default to Studio for projects and Personal (Living Portfolio) for individuals.

Sources baked in

Source	Core idea pulled
Caleb Ralston brand course (6h)	Brand = intentional pairing done consistently; 4-question brand journey; positioning by gap; 3-part story (catalyst / core truth / why audience cares); educational content scales trust
Oren John living-portfolio (29 min)	Living Portfolio over Behance; Audience of 10; 3 formats only (BTS, carousel, showcase); 3 routes (named / studio / creator); 1 post/month + 1 email/quarter floor
Harry Dry copywriting (76 min)	3-rule test (visualize / falsify / nobody else); facts > adjectives; conflict every sentence; point A to point B; 20+ rewrites; Kaplan's law
100k content 2026 (Brier Cochran)	Personal brand is the #1 asset; 1% better daily; counterposition; ideation faucets (Reddit, secondary TikTok, internal data, 5+5 competitors); untangle data (hook/format/topic/illustration); 4:2:1 weekly mix (top of funnel / mid / bottom)
Internal rework (signal-over-cadence)	Signal accumulation > output cadence; source-artifact pipeline (1-2 real events to 5-6 derivatives); 5 named recurring series for audience memory; visual variety rule (4+ surfaces/week); positioning by thinking, not demographic; two-handle studio pattern; proof-first month-1 milestone for service brands

Inputs needed

Ask the user only what you cannot derive from the project's existing notes (Projects/<name>/overview.md, architecture.md). Specifically pull:

• What the project does in one sentence
• Who buys / hires / follows (current ideal customer)
• What outcome the user wants (sales, hires, followers, authority, calls booked)
• Whether the brand is under user's real name or a studio handle
• Platforms the user is willing to post on (default: Instagram + LinkedIn)
• Constraints (anonymous? time per week? camera-shy?)

If notes exist, read them first and only ask for the gaps.

Process

Step 1. Brand Journey (Caleb's 4 reverse-engineered questions)

Reverse-engineer from desired outcome to today's action:

1. Desired outcome. What does winning look like in 12 months? Be specific: "30 paid Gumroad customers/month" beats "make money".
2. Be known for. What does the audience have to inherently associate with the brand for outcome #1 to happen?
3. Do. What actions, repeated, create that association?
4. Learn. What does the user need to learn this week to start doing #3?

Save answers to brand-journey.md.

Step 2. Associations (positive AND negative)

Two lists:

• Pair with: 3 to 5 concrete things the brand wants to be inherently associated with. Concrete, not adjectives. "Working voice agents for SMBs" beats "AI expertise".
• Do NOT pair with: 3 to 5 things to avoid. Includes specific people, niches, and aesthetics. This is Caleb's "stand out by what you refuse to associate with" rule. Be willing to name names privately in this file.

Save to associations.md.

Step 3. Positioning gap (Caleb + Brier counterposition)

Find the gap. Two questions:

1. What is everyone in this niche saying that the user disagrees with?
2. What story / lens / personality / experience does the user have that no competitor has?

Output a single positioning sentence in this shape: <Project> is the only <category> for <ICP> that <unique mechanism / belief>.

Then output the counterposition list: 5 to 7 niche competitors and the specific gap the project occupies vs each. This is Brier's "give away the sauce, then counterposition" move.

Position by thinking, not by demographic. A demographic spine (age, region, profession-as-identity) is the weakest form of positioning because:

• It is imitable in months as more people in that demographic enter
• It frames the brand around who the operator is instead of how they think, which limits the work the brand can carry as the operator matures
• It pulls the audience toward a parasocial relationship with the person, not toward the systems / products / craft

The strongest positioning legs are taste, operational thinking, specific deep knowledge, adversarial belief vs the dominant frame. A demographic fact (age, country, role) is a one-time bio mention, not a positioning leg. If the first draft positioning sentence leans on who-the-operator-is, rewrite until it leans on how-they-think.

Save to positioning.md.

Step 4. Brand kit (Oren)

Decide and lock:

• 2 to 3 color combos
• 1 to 2 font pairs
• A small set of icons or illustrations
• A typographic / visual tic that becomes recognizable before the caption is read (Oren's "trademark visual tic" rule)

Save to brand-kit.md.

Step 4b. Handle reality check + handle architecture

Before locking the brand-kit and before any external surface uses the handle, check actual availability on every platform the user will be on within 12 months (IG, YouTube, TikTok, X, Threads, GitHub org, Beehiiv). Clean single-word handles are almost always taken. Pre-decide the fallback pattern so the brand kit stamps the right handle from day 1:

• Triple-letter: @brandnameee
• Suffix: @brandname.labs, @brandname.studio, @brandname.hq
• Underscore: @brand_name (last resort, weakest)

Then decide the handle architecture: many studio brands benefit from a two-handle pattern, not one:

Handle	Role
Main @brandname	Polished face. Format A / B / C only. Brand-kit applied. Source-artifact derivatives. Status bar visible.
B-side @brandname.notes	Public lab notebook. Raw stills, tracebacks, cost screenshots, whiteboard photos. No brand-kit overhead. Daily 1-3 posts. "Never empty" account.

The B-side is where Caleb's vulnerability rule lives as a recurring venue, so it does not dilute the main feed. Cross-account protocol: main account references B-side posts on Friday teardowns and Series 4 cost posts (1-direction discovery flow), B-side never references main.

Save the handle architecture to handles.md. Make handles.md the single source of truth and stop scattering handle references across positioning / hero-line / brand-kit.

When the brand is a service with a real product, the two-handle pattern is recommended. When the brand is a personal living portfolio or newsletter, the single-handle pattern is fine, do not invent a second account just because the skill suggests it.

Step 5. Hero line (Harry Dry's 3-rule test)

Write the brand's single hero line that goes on the bio, landing page, and pinned post. Apply Harry's three tests:

• Visualize: can the reader close their eyes and see it?
• Falsify: is it true or false (not opinion-shaped air)?
• Nobody else: could a competitor copy-paste this and have it still be true? If yes, kill it.

Iterate until all three pass. Show the user 3 candidate hero lines in a table with a Pass/Fail mark per test. Use facts not adjectives ("8/10 booking calls answered in under 4 seconds" beats "lightning fast"). Apply Kaplan's law: cut every word not doing work. Target 12 words or fewer.

Save to hero-line.md. Include the 20+ rewrite trail so the user can see why the final won.

Step 6. Three native formats (Oren)

Lock three formats only. The user posts in one of these three molds every time. No new format invention allowed.

1. BTS / transformation (6 to 15 sec iPhone clips of work in progress into the polished result)
2. Creative carousel (4 to 8 slides applying the brand kit to work or life lessons)
3. Straight showcase (user on camera with the product, in a styled environment)

Save to formats.md with 2 example post outlines per format using the specific project.

Step 6b. Source-artifact pipeline

Critical: do not let the 30-day plan rely on inventing 7 unique topics per week. That model burns the operator out and produces isolated posts with no narrative compounding. Replace it with the source-artifact pipeline.

A source artifact is a real operational event the project produces:

• A cron failure with stack trace + fix commit
• A real customer call (with permission) with the call log
• A measurable workflow before/after at a real client
• A cost spike + the optimization that fixed it
• A new architectural decision recorded with logs proving the call

For each source artifact, generate the standard derivative set across 1 to 2 weeks:

Derivative	Where	Format
Reel showing the artifact happening	Main IG + cross to YT Shorts	A1 or A2
Carousel explaining the architecture	Main IG + LinkedIn doc	B1 / B2 / B3
LinkedIn text or document post	LinkedIn	B (as PDF)
Raw screenshot on B-side handle	@brand.notes IG	A still
Newsletter postmortem (quarterly bundle)	Beehiiv	letter
Future YouTube teardown (monthly)	YouTube long-form	C1

Target: 1 to 2 source artifacts per week, 5 to 6 derivatives each. This produces 5 to 12 posts/week from 1-2 real events, not 7 invented topics. Daily Reels become re-cuts and angles on the week's artifacts: same event, different camera, different overlay, different beat.

Add the source-artifact pipeline section to formats.md.

Step 6c. Recurring named series

Without recurring named series, posts read as isolated units. With them, audience memory compounds and the brand owns categories of thought in the feed.

Define 4 to 6 named series. Each must have:

• A name (3-5 words, distinctive enough to stencil on slide 1)
• A slot (which day of the week, which format)
• A cadence (weekly, biweekly, every 3 weeks, monthly)
• An absolute rule about what counts (real failure only / real cost only / real before-after only, no fabricated content)
• A required-pieces checklist (must include the stack trace, the cost number, the fix commit, the before/after diagram, etc.)

Default series library for an operator-shaped brand:

1. "Why this [thing] failed" — Friday slot, replaces or pairs with the weekly ledger. Real failure only.
2. "Replacing operational friction" — monthly long-form
   • Wednesday setup carousel. Real business workflow.
3. "Humans still needed here" — every-3-weeks Monday contrarian. Workflows where automation fails.
4. "Cost to run this [system]" — every-2-weeks Wednesday tactical. Real line-item costs.
5. "[Adversarial belief] > [dominant frame]" — every-2-weeks Monday contrarian (rotates with series 3). Specific architecture call with numbers.

For non-operator brands (personal living portfolios, info products, SaaS), invent the equivalent: name the 4-6 categories the brand will own, set slots and cadences, write the rules.

Critical: every post in a series must visibly carry the series banner in the first 2 seconds of the Reel or on slide 1 of the carousel. Without the banner, the post reads as one-off content again and the series compounding is lost.

Save to recurring-series.md.

Step 6d. Visual variety menu

A common failure mode is the operator over-indexing on one visual surface (terminal scrolls, talking head, screen recordings). The lane saturates and engagement collapses fast. The skill must explicitly demand a variety floor.

Rule: at least 4 different visual surfaces in any given week's 7 Reels. If 5 of 7 are the same surface (e.g. terminal), kill 2 and replace with a different surface.

Default visual variety menu for an operator-shaped brand:

• Whiteboard breakdowns (camera on the whiteboard, no face needed)
• Business process maps drawn live (Mermaid + screen rec)
• Annotated screenshots of real logs (boxes + arrows in red)
• Before/after architecture diagrams
• Cost breakdown overlays (line-item tables as the whole frame)
• Real call clips (with explicit permission)
• Location reality shots (the actual client site)
• Receipt shots (payment screenshots, customer DMs, calendar bookings)
• One brief talking head per post for context, never as the whole post

For non-operator brands: build the equivalent menu specific to the project (product photos, customer reactions, behind-the-scenes of the craft, finished work, raw materials, etc.). The rule is variety floor, not the specific menu.

Add the visual variety menu and the 4-surfaces-per-week rule to formats.md.

Step 7. Weekly content mix (Brier's 4:2:1, but driven by source artifacts)

Out of 7 posts/week (or whatever the user commits to), split:

• 4 top-of-funnel posts (high TAM, still on through-line, designed for reach: contrarian opinion / hot take / industry shift / "5 X for Y")
• 2 middle-of-funnel posts (blow their mind: tactical breakdown, "here's how I do X step by step")
• 1 bottom-of-funnel post (sneak peek inside: "what working with me looks like / what a customer gets")

Plus daily stories (intimate, nurturing, no discovery pressure).

Optimize for signal accumulation, not output cadence. The driver is 1 to 2 real source artifacts per week, not 7 invented topics. Every Reel and carousel is a derivative of one of those artifacts (see Step 6b). The 4:2:1 funnel split is applied to the derivatives of the week's artifacts, not used to demand 7 separate content topics from thin air.

Lock the recurring-series rotation into the funnel split (TOF slot gets Series 3 or 5 rotating, MOF gets Series 2 or 4 rotating, BOF gets Series 1 every week, adapt to the project's specific series).

Save to content-mix.md. Include 2 specific post ideas per slot for week 1.

Step 8. Ideation faucets (Brier)

Set up four permanent idea sources so the user never runs dry:

1. Reddit faucet — list 3 subreddits relevant to the niche, instruct user to paste top-of-month thread into ChatGPT once a week
2. Secondary TikTok — new account following only the niche, save outlier videos (outlier = >3x that creator's baseline, not just absolute views)
3. Internal data — every Sunday, find the week's top post and reduce it to a single buzzword; next week make another video on that buzzword
4. 5 + 5 competitors — 5 inside the niche (steal topics) and 5 outside (steal formats). Mash them.

Save to ideation-faucets.md populated with the actual subreddit names, TikTok handles, and competitors for this user's niche.

Step 9. 30-day day-by-day execution plan

Generate a calendar from today's date forward, 30 rows. Each row has:

• Date
• Format (BTS / carousel / showcase)
• Funnel slot (TOF / MOF / BOF)
• Series tag (which of the 4-6 named series from Step 6c, or "none")
• Working title
• Hook (Harry Dry tested)
• One-line CTA

Day 1 to 7 are fully written. Day 8 to 30 are slot-filled with placeholders the user fills weekly using the ideation faucets. Restructure each week around the 1 to 2 source artifacts the user will produce that week (see Step 6b), not around 7 invented topics.

Proof-first month-1 milestone for service/product brands. For any brand that sells a real product or service to a real customer (not just personal-brand-as-content), the most important mover in the first 30 days is getting one real customer deployment within Day 21, free or token-paid, so that all content from Week 4 onward uses real-customer data instead of self-tested demos. Proof density is the bottleneck on conversion, not posting frequency.

Add a "month-1 milestone" section to the top of 30-day-plan.md with:

• The specific deployment target (one clinic, one client, one paid user, one pilot)
• Week 1-2 cold outreach sub-tasks
• Week 3 deployment + first real-data capture sub-tasks
• Week 4 content all sourced from the real deployment

For non-service brands (personal living portfolios, OSS, newsletters), swap the milestone for the equivalent proof-event: "first paying subscriber", "first cited by a known name", "first repo with 100 stars", "first interview / speaking invitation".

Save to 30-day-plan.md. Use absolute dates, not "day 1 / day 2".

Step 10. Energy + environment rules (Caleb)

Write the user's specific:

• Energy rhythm: which hours of the day are peak; protect that block for filming like a meeting
• Film-day environment rules: who reviews drafts, who hits the "this is good" signal, how feedback is given (Caleb's nod / fist-bump / specific praise protocol). For solo creators: write a personal-checklist version ("after each take: rewatch, mark one line that was great, mark one to cut")
• Standards bar: 9/10+ ships (Harry's standard). Anything else gets cut or reshot.

Save to operating-rules.md.

Step 11. Update todos and link

• Append daily-posting block to Notes/todos.md
• Add a one-line entry to your master index linking the new Projects/<name>/brand/ folder
• If the project's Projects/<name>/session-log.md exists, append today's session entry

Outputs (all saved to Projects/<name>/brand/)

Projects/<name>/brand/
├── brand-journey.md
├── associations.md
├── positioning.md
├── brand-kit.md
├── handles.md
├── hero-line.md
├── formats.md
├── recurring-series.md
├── content-mix.md
├── ideation-faucets.md
├── 30-day-plan.md
└── operating-rules.md

Guardrails

• No em dashes anywhere in outputs.
• Use facts not adjectives. "300 prompts shipped in 30 days" beats "prolific".
• Every claim falsifiable. Strip "amazing", "revolutionary", "best", etc.
• Hero line max 12 words. Bio max 220 chars per platform.
• No "build in public" advice as the headline tactic (Brier's hard stance, inherited here). Building in public is fine as flavor, not strategy.
• If the project is anonymous-by-design, route the user to the Studio variant (Oren's "anonymous studio launch" path). Do not insist on real name.
• Default platforms: Instagram + LinkedIn. Add TikTok only if user is OK with starting under a separate handle to bypass IRL-friend insecurity (Brier's tip).
• One post per month + one email per quarter is the floor. If the user cannot commit to 3 posts per week, lock the floor and stop. Do not let them oscillate (Oren's hard rule).

Anti-patterns to refuse

• "Just go viral once." Brand is built on stacked posts, not one hit (Brier's ghost-follower warning).
• "Use AI to write the scripts." AI for ideation only, never for the script itself (Harry Dry: taste + conviction + experience are non-replaceable).
• "Optimize for follower count." Reframe to follower quality (Brier's Michigan Stadium vs 10-CEO-room exercise).
• "Build a separate brand for every product the user makes." Counter: one living portfolio with the user as the through-line. Sub-products live under it.
• "Post 7 unique topics a week." This is the cadence-over-signal trap. Counter: 1 to 2 source artifacts per week feed 5 to 12 derivative posts. Same event, different angle.
• "Lead with the demographic gimmick." Age + region + role as the headline positioning is the weakest leg. Counter: position by thinking (taste, operational lens, deep knowledge, adversarial belief). Demographic is a one-time bio mention.
• "Wait for inbound from posts." For service/product brands, posting without one real customer deployment in month 1 produces demo-content forever. Counter: the Day-21 real-deployment milestone runs in parallel with the posting plan, not after it.
• "Only post terminal scrolls / talking heads / one visual surface." Counter: 4-surfaces-per-week minimum from the visual variety menu.
• "Skip the recurring series; just post good content." Without named recurring series, posts read as isolated units with no compounding. Counter: 4-6 named series with banners visible in first 2 seconds.

Universal capture template (Step 0)

Before Step 1, fill this once per project. Saves time on all later steps.

project_name: <kebab-case>
brand_type: personal | studio | product | service | oss | newsletter
real_name_or_alias: <handle>
one_sentence_what_it_does: <fill>
icp:
  who: <buyer / hirer / follower>
  pain_or_desire: <what they want changed>
  where_they_hang_out: <platforms, communities>
desired_outcome_12mo: <one specific number + one qualitative win>
constraints:
  anonymous_required: yes | no
  time_per_week_hours: <int>
  camera_comfort: yes | no | reluctant
  platforms_committed: <list, default IG + LinkedIn>
existing_assets:
  website: <url or none>
  audience: <existing handles + follower counts>
  visual_identity: <link to existing brand-profile.json if any>

Application examples (seed library, expand over time)

Drop a row here every time the skill is used on a new project, so future runs have priors to lean on.

Project type	Brand type	ICP	Through-line	Positioning gap
Digital product shop	Studio	Creators / solopreneurs buying $7 to $17 templates	"A script runs the shop"	Show actual code + weekly ledger vs guru screenshots
Faceless content studio	Studio	Niche aesthetic audience	Visual style + automation	Faceless studio with literally autonomous output
B2B outreach pipeline	Service	AI builders / agencies	"I sent 1000 cold emails with a pipeline"	Operator voice vs agency-bro voice
Voice agent for SMBs	Service	Indian clinic / salon owners	"Voice agent that picks up before the third ring"	Local-language coverage, local pricing, real demos
Self-iterating portfolio	Personal (Living Portfolio)	Recruiters + collaborators	"The site rewrites its own copy daily"	The artifact is the proof
GitHub profile	Personal (Living Portfolio)	Other devs	Animated, self-updating profile	README is the resume

To add a new row: at the end of any successful run of this skill, ask the user "should I add this project to the seed library?" and append.

Iteration cadence

After 30 days, return to the user with this 7-question retro:

1. Which posts hit the user's "viral for you" baseline (3-5x normal)?
2. What single buzzword summarizes those? (Brier's untangling-data rule)
3. Which of the three formats outperformed?
4. Which content mix slot underperformed and should be cut?
5. What did the audience ask about in DMs / comments? (Caleb's social listening rule)
6. Which named recurring series outperformed? Kill the bottom 1, double down on the top 1, leave the middle alone.
7. Did the month-1 proof milestone land? If yes, Week 5 onward content is 100% real-deployment-derived. If no, diagnose: was outreach the bottleneck, the offer, or the close? Fix that before producing more demo content.

Use the answers to rewrite the next 30-day plan. Do not start from scratch.

#skill #personal-brand #content-strategy