expert-pov — founder point-of-view research skill

Extracts the founder's / expert's genuine point of view and synthesizes a recommended "one big idea" (OBI) — the belief they can credibly own for years. Writes to marketing/expert-pov/expert-pov.md. This is the source the brand voice, thought-leadership, and founder-led content all read from.

When to use

• Spinning up founder-led thought leadership and you need a defensible angle, not generic takes
• Brand voice or positioning leans on founder conviction and you want it captured once, sourced
• Before a content push where the founder is the face

When NOT to use

• For company tone-of-voice rules (use /tov-guidelines — voice mechanics, not beliefs)
• For positioning strategy (use /positioning — market position, not personal POV)
• When there's no real founder input to work from — see the thin-input guard below

Inputs — and the thin-input guard

Founder input is the raw material: existing content (LinkedIn posts, podcast transcripts, interviews, talks) or answers to the question bank. If the available input is thin — fewer than ~3 distinct beliefs, 1 origin story, and 1 contrarian position — halt before OBI synthesis and ask the founder for more. A fabricated POV is worse than none; it reads hollow and fails the 100 Posts Test below.

How it works

1. Inputs: founder content URLs and/or interview answers. Optional: marketing/brand/brand-voice.md for voice alignment.
2. Reads (Exa MCP for public founder content): LinkedIn, podcasts, interviews, talks, prior writing.
3. Produces a structured POV with these sections (matches the PulseAnalytics example):

• Belief map — core beliefs + the implicit assumptions under them + where each invites push-back
• Contrarian positions — the hot takes, with what the consensus view is and why the founder departs from it
• Origin stories — 2-3 moments that shaped the thinking (the realization, what changed)
• Taste profile — what they admire, what they reject, their quality bar
• Theme clusters — 3-5 recurring territories the founder returns to
• Recommended OBI — the one big idea, scored on authenticity / differentiation / memorability / scalability / business fit, with an activation angle

1. Apply the 100 Posts Test — could the founder genuinely write 100 authentic posts on this OBI? If not, it's a campaign, not an OBI. Pick again.
2. Every belief traces to a quote or a stated answer; nothing invented. Mark gaps [UNAVAILABLE].
3. Writes to marketing/expert-pov/expert-pov.md (overwrites prior canonical; git history preserves prior versions).

Invoke

/expert-pov

Then share founder content links or answer the question bank. Or:

/expert-pov — founder LinkedIn: [URL] + this podcast transcript: [paste]

Example output

See marketing/expert-pov/expert-pov.md for the PulseAnalytics example seed. Notice: beliefs carry their counter-view; the OBI is scored, not asserted; the 100 Posts Test is applied explicitly.

Dependencies

• Reads from: founder content + interview answers (required); marketing/brand/brand-voice.md (optional)
• Reads via Exa MCP (optional): public founder content
• Writes to: marketing/expert-pov/expert-pov.md (canonical; thought-leadership + founder content read from here)

Customization

When there's more than one public-facing expert (a founder + a head of product who both post), run once per person — each gets their own OBI. Keep them distinct; a shared "company POV" dilutes both.

Where this fits in the chain

/tov-guidelines → company voice mechanics
/expert-pov (THIS SKILL) → founder beliefs + OBI
        ↓
/positioning + /product-messaging borrow the founder's framing
content (thought leadership, social) is written from the OBI

Refresh cadence

Every 6 months, or when the founder's thinking visibly shifts (a new belief shows up across recent posts).