Talk To Users Agent Skill

Talk to users (the TAB system)

> The best marketing to developers comes from talking to developers. That's it. Everything else in this repo is downstream of this skill.

Use this when: you've never done a real user interview, your messaging is clever but unverified, or you keep debating the roadmap internally instead of asking the people who feel the pain.

The core idea

Stand up a Technical Advisory Board: 30-50 people who *represent your users and buyers*, not grey-haired advisors telling you how to build. You interview them, on repeat, and let their words become your positioning, roadmap, and homepage copy.

A TAB call is not a demo and not a sales call. It's an interview. You never mention the product.

Framework: the TAB system (Frankl)

Composition

• One+ representative of *every persona that touches the product* (see who-is-this-for)
• Both users (interact) and customers (pay), often different people
• Target 30-50 members

Cadence

• 30 minutes · one-on-one · monthly · for ~6 months
• Zoom, recorded with permission, never in person
• Same questions every time · never pitch

Recruitment (it's a numbers game)

• Personalize every message, never batch-and-blast
• Lead with *their* problem, not your startup
• Max 4 sentences
• ~10% reply → plan ~500 outreaches for ~50 members
• No payment: early access, influence, swag

Template:

Dear [Name],

Your post about [specific problem] was genuinely sharp.

I'm building something to attack [that problem] and I'd value your view. Would
you consider joining my technical advisory board?

If so, reply and I'll set up a short call to explain what's involved.

The 7 questions (never more than 7 in 30 min)

• Magic wand: *"If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about how you do [task], what would it be?"*
• The stakes: *"If we delivered that, how would it change your day / your work?"*
• Why now: *"What's different about the world now that makes this more valuable than five years ago?"*
• What caused this problem in your org?
• What have you tried, and why did it fall short?
• What happens if nothing changes for another year?
• Where do you go to stay current on this? (who/what they trust)

Analyze: turn transcripts into assets

Highlight complete sentences (not fragments) into four buckets, then synthesize the top 3-5 of each, in the interviewee's exact words:

| Bucket | You're mining for |

|---|---|

| Pains | bad outcomes, risks, obstacles |

| Gains | outcomes they want |

| Jobs | what they're trying to accomplish |

| Environmental changes | trends making the pain worse over time → your villain |

Those four buckets feed directly into positioning-and-story and value-prop-that-converts.

Mistakes that look reasonable

• Interviewing friends: they're nice and useless. You need people who'll say no.
• Pitching mid-interview: the moment you demo, they start being polite instead of honest.
• Leading questions: "wouldn't it be great if…" gets you the answer you fished for.
• Batch outreach: a templated blast to 200 people gets 200 ignores. Personalize or don't send.
• Asking for solutions: users are experts in their pain, not in your product. Mine the pain.

Your next 30 minutes

• [ ] List every persona from who-is-this-for; you need TAB members for each.
• [ ] Find 10 people who've *publicly posted about the problem* (HN, Reddit, GitHub issues, X).
• [ ] Send 10 personalized, 4-sentence, problem-first invites. Today.
• [ ] Lock your 7 questions (3 above + 4 tailored). Do not exceed 7.
• [ ] After 3 calls, fill the Pains/Gains/Jobs/Changes table with real quotes.

Built from real dev-tool GTM experience, with frameworks from Adam Frankl (*The Developer-Facing Startup*) and Jakub Czakon (*markepear.dev*).

When a framework can't make the call, that's what a human is for: The DevTool GTM Company.