value-proposition

# Value Proposition Maps the customer side (jobs, pains, gains) against the product side (pain relievers, gain creators), then judges the fit honestly — including the features that relieve nothing. Distinct from `positioning`, which decides the competitive frame you compete inside; this decides whether the value is real before you go frame it. **Grounded in:** *Value Proposition Design* — Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda & Smith: profile the customer *before* the product, rank jobs by importance and pains by severity, and score fit only where a reliever meets a ranked pain. The rule that does the work: **fit is claimed only against a pain or gain the customer ranked highly**, not against every feature you can attach to something. **The load-bearing idea:** most value propositions fail on the customer side, not the product side. A beautifully specified reliever aimed at a pain nobody ranks is the most common form of wasted engineering. ## When to use this - Messaging isn't landing and you suspect the problem is upstream of the copy. - The product does eight things and the team disagrees about which one people buy it for. - Before `positioning` or `pricing` — both need a settled view of what value exists. - Evaluating a new feature: does it relieve a ranked pain, or is it interesting? - Entering a new segment where the same product meets a different set of jobs. - After research synthesis, to turn themes into a fit assessment. ## Before you start (gather these) - **Evidence ...