Mmcp.market

made-to-stick skill

by wondelai·wondelai/skills·2.3k stars·MIT

Craft messages that are understood, remembered, and drive action using the SUCCESs checklist (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories). Use when the user mentions "make it memorable", "no one remembers our pitch", "tagline", "value proposition", "why the message isnt landing", "curse of knowledge", or "concrete language". Also trigger when writing a pitch deck, simplifying a complex product explanation, or making a presentation more compelling. Covers the six SUCCESs traits and the curse of knowledge. For narrative brand frameworks, see storybrand-messaging. For viral sharing, see contagious.

A100/100content scan

Is the made-to-stick skill safe?

Clean: nothing in its files matched our rules. We read 10 files in the folder on 2026-09-28.

No findings.

Install the made-to-stick skill

A skill is a folder. Copy it into your agent's skills folder and the agent loads it when the task matches its description. 

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wondelai/skills.git /tmp/skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/skills/made-to-stick ~/.claude/skills/made-to-stick
available in every project

In the Claude apps, zip the folder and upload it from the Skills settings. The folder on GitHub

The instructions your agent would load

SKILL.md as published, without the frontmatter. Read it on GitHub

Made to Stick Framework

A framework for crafting ideas and messages that are understood, remembered, and drive lasting action. Based on decades of research into why some ideas survive and others die.

Core Principle

The Curse of Knowledge is the single greatest barrier to effective communication. Once we know something, we can't imagine not knowing it—which makes us bad at explaining our ideas to others. Sticky ideas aren't born, they're made: the SUCCESs framework provides six principles that make any idea more memorable and impactful.

Scoring

Goal: 10/10. Score any messaging (copy, presentations, campaigns, onboarding) by running the Quick Diagnostic: rate each of the six traits 1-10, then map the 6-60 total to a band (50-60 = 9-10, extremely sticky; 35-49 = 7-8, strong; 20-34 = 4-6, forgettable; below 20 = ≤3, won't stick). Always state the current score, which traits scored lowest, and the specific fix from the diagnostic's Fix column.

The SUCCESs Framework

Simple · Unexpected · Concrete · Credible · Emotional · Stories

Not a checklist—a toolkit. Not every sticky idea uses all six, but the stickiest ideas tend to use most of them—don't force all six onto a message that only needs two.

1. Simple

Core concept: Find the core of the idea and share it compactly. Simple ≠ dumbed down—it means ruthless prioritization: "if you say three things, you say nothing."

The Commander's Intent: if everything else goes wrong, what ONE thing must we accomplish? For messaging: if people remember ONE thing about your product, what should it be? The inverted pyramid: lead with the most important thing; readers who stop anywhere still got the core.

Techniques for simplicity:

Application to product messaging:

The test: Can you explain it to a smart 12-year-old? Warning: don't simplify into emptiness—"we make the world better" is simple but meaningless.

See references/simple.md when you can't reduce a message to one core idea—it has the Commander's Intent exercise, the inverted-pyramid pattern, and five "find the core" drills.

2. Unexpected

Core concept: Get attention by breaking patterns (surprise); hold attention by creating curiosity gaps (interest). The surprise must connect to the core message—identify the counterintuitive implication and communicate that.

Example surprises:

Creating curiosity gaps — open a gap in knowledge, create the desire to fill it:

Anti-pattern: Gimmicky surprise without substance.

See references/unexpected.md when a message reads as predictable—it has techniques for finding the counterintuitive angle and engineering curiosity gaps.

3. Concrete

Core concept: Use sensory language and specific details instead of abstract concepts. Abstraction kills memorability; the more concrete and specific the idea, the stickier it becomes.

Abstract vs. Concrete:

The Velcro theory of memory: concrete ideas have more "hooks"—"bicycle" is easier to remember than "vehicle" because you can picture it.

Techniques for concreteness:

Application: features → outcomes; percentages → real numbers ("saves 40%" → "saves 16 hours/month"); categories → specific examples ("restaurants" → "pizza shops in Brooklyn"); demos > feature lists.

See references/concrete.md when a message stays abstract—it has sensory-language drills and the abstract-to-concrete conversion process.

4. Credible

Core concept: Help people believe your idea using external credibility (authorities, credentials) and internal credibility (vivid details, human-scale statistics, testable claims)—internal is more powerful.

External credibility:

Internal credibility:

The Sinatra Test: one reference so impressive it handles all objections—"We secured the White House" (security), "We handle Super Bowl traffic" (scalability), "Used by Apple, Google, and Microsoft" (quality).

Making statistics stick: put them in a context people understand—not "37 grams of saturated fat" but "more saturated fat than a Big Mac, fries, and milkshake combined."

See references/credible.md when a claim sounds unbelievable—it has authority types, the Sinatra Test, and methods for making statistics human-scale.

5. Emotional

Core concept: Make people feel something—people act on emotion, not analysis. Statistics numb; stories about individuals inspire action. Mother Teresa principle: "If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will."

Emotional appeals:

The identity approach: people decide based on identity, not calculation—frame your product as consistent with who they want to be:

Avoid the "semantic stretch": don't over-abstract the emotion—"Support the troops" beats "Support our national defense infrastructure."

See references/emotional.md when a message is all logic and no feeling—it has the individual-focus, identity, and self-interest appeal frameworks.

6. Stories

Core concept: Stories are flight simulators for the brain: they simulate experience, inspire action, stay memorable through narrative structure, and bypass resistance (people don't argue with stories).

Three story plots that work:

Story structure for product messaging: character (relatable customer) → problem (emotional) → journey (what they tried, concrete) → solution (how your product helped, specific) → outcome (measurable + emotional).

Example:

"Sarah ran a 10-person design agency. Her team spent 4 hours every Friday compiling client reports from 5 different tools. She'd tried hiring an intern, building spreadsheets, even a custom tool. Nothing worked. Then she found [Product]. Now reports generate in 10 minutes. Last Friday, her team left at 3pm for the first time in years."

Spotting stories in the wild: support tickets (problems + resolutions), sales calls (objections + breakthroughs), user interviews (before/after moments), internal Slack (team wins).

See references/stories.md when you need to build a narrative—it has the three story plots, the product-story structure, and methods for collecting real stories.

The Curse of Knowledge

How it manifests: jargon your audience doesn't know; skipping context that seems "obvious"; assuming your audience sees what you see; over-abstracting because you know the specifics.

Solutions: test messaging with outsiders (not your team); use concrete language, not abstractions; tell stories, not bullet points; ask "would my mom understand this?"

See references/curse-of-knowledge.md when your own message reads clearly but lands flat on others—it has diagnosis and remedies for shared-context blind spots.

Applying SUCCESs to Product

Landing Pages

  • Simple: one clear value proposition above the fold
  • Unexpected: counterintuitive claim or statistic
  • Concrete: specific outcome ("save 4 hours/week" not "save time")
  • Credible: customer logos, specific testimonials
  • Emotional + Stories: customer pain point and transformation narrative

Product Demos

  • Simple: show ONE core workflow, not every feature
  • Unexpected: start with the "aha moment", not a tour
  • Concrete: use real data, not "Lorem ipsum"
  • Credible: show how [specific company] uses it
  • Emotional + Stories: "Let me show you what happens when [customer] has this problem..."

Onboarding

More skills from wondelai/skills

  • A37signals-wayBuild lean, opinionated products using the 37signals philosophy from "Getting Real", "Rework", and "Shape Up". Use when the user mentions "Getting Real", "Rework", "Shape Up", "37signals", "Basecamp method", "six-week cycles", "fixed time variable scope", "appetite vs estimates", "betting table", "breadboarding", "fat marker sketch", "build less", "underdo the competition", "opinionated software", "we have too many meetings", "how do we ship faster", or "stop overbuilding". Also trigger when cutting scope to ship sooner, running a small team, or avoiding long-term roadmaps. Covers shaping, betting, building, and the art of saying no. For MVP validation, see lean-startup. For design sprints, see design-sprint.
  • A37signals-wayBuild lean, opinionated products using the 37signals philosophy from "Getting Real", "Rework", and "Shape Up". Use when the user mentions "Getting Real", "Rework", "Shape Up", "37signals", "Basecamp method", "six-week cycles", "fixed time variable scope", "appetite vs estimates", "betting table", "breadboarding", "fat marker sketch", "build less", "underdo the competition", "opinionated software", "we have too many meetings", "how do we ship faster", or "stop overbuilding". Also trigger when cutting scope to ship sooner, running a small team, or avoiding long-term roadmaps. Covers shaping, betting, building, and the art of saying no. For MVP validation, see lean-startup. For design sprints, see design-sprint.
  • A37signals-wayBuild lean, opinionated products using the 37signals philosophy from "Getting Real", "Rework", and "Shape Up". Use when the user mentions "Getting Real", "Rework", "Shape Up", "37signals", "Basecamp method", "six-week cycles", "fixed time variable scope", "appetite vs estimates", "betting table", "breadboarding", "fat marker sketch", "build less", "underdo the competition", "opinionated software", "we have too many meetings", "how do we ship faster", or "stop overbuilding". Also trigger when cutting scope to ship sooner, running a small team, or avoiding long-term roadmaps. Covers shaping, betting, building, and the art of saying no. For MVP validation, see lean-startup. For design sprints, see design-sprint.
  • Aarchitecture-optimizationGuided journey from a working codebase grown slow and tangled to one measurably fast, cleanly bounded, and readable. Orchestrates eight skills phase by phase - working-with-legacy-code, clean-architecture, software-design-philosophy, refactoring-patterns, system-design, ddia-systems, release-it, pragmatic-programmer - every phase carries its method inline so it runs standalone, asking the user questions at every decision point and recording results in the project docs/ folder (PERFORMANCE.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, ARCHITECTURE-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md) so the journey resumes across sessions. Use when the user wants to make an app faster, untangle drifted boundaries, fix slow endpoints and queries, or says ''it works but it is slow and getting worse''. For an untested prototype, improve-code-quality; for an aged codebase you fear to touch, remove-technical-debt; for greenfield structure, design-code-architecture; for marketing-site page speed, improve-website. For one framework in isolation, invoke that skill directly.
  • Aarchitecture-optimizationGuided journey from a working codebase grown slow and tangled to one measurably fast, cleanly bounded, and readable. Orchestrates eight skills phase by phase - working-with-legacy-code, clean-architecture, software-design-philosophy, refactoring-patterns, system-design, ddia-systems, release-it, pragmatic-programmer - every phase carries its method inline so it runs standalone, asking the user questions at every decision point and recording results in the project docs/ folder (PERFORMANCE.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, ARCHITECTURE-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md) so the journey resumes across sessions. Use when the user wants to make an app faster, untangle drifted boundaries, fix slow endpoints and queries, or says ''it works but it is slow and getting worse''. For an untested prototype, improve-code-quality; for an aged codebase you fear to touch, remove-technical-debt; for greenfield structure, design-code-architecture; for marketing-site page speed, improve-website. For one framework in isolation, invoke that skill directly.
  • Aarchitecture-optimizationGuided journey from a working codebase grown slow and tangled to one measurably fast, cleanly bounded, and readable. Orchestrates eight skills phase by phase - working-with-legacy-code, clean-architecture, software-design-philosophy, refactoring-patterns, system-design, ddia-systems, release-it, pragmatic-programmer - every phase carries its method inline so it runs standalone, asking the user questions at every decision point and recording results in the project docs/ folder (PERFORMANCE.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, ARCHITECTURE-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md) so the journey resumes across sessions. Use when the user wants to make an app faster, untangle drifted boundaries, fix slow endpoints and queries, or says ''it works but it is slow and getting worse''. For an untested prototype, improve-code-quality; for an aged codebase you fear to touch, remove-technical-debt; for greenfield structure, design-code-architecture; for marketing-site page speed, improve-website. For one framework in isolation, invoke that skill directly.
  • Ablue-ocean-strategyCreate uncontested market space using value innovation instead of competing head-to-head. Use when the user mentions "blue ocean", "red ocean", "strategy canvas", "ERRC framework", "value innovation", "non-customers", "buyer utility map", "the market is too crowded", "how do we stand out", or "escape the price war". Also trigger when exploring a new market category, or finding underserved or non-customers. Covers the Four Actions Framework, Six Paths, buyer utility map, and value-cost trade-offs. For real strategy formulation and bad-strategy detection, see good-strategy-bad-strategy. For tech adoption strategy, see crossing-the-chasm. For product positioning, see obviously-awesome.
  • Ablue-ocean-strategyCreate uncontested market space using value innovation instead of competing head-to-head. Use when the user mentions "blue ocean", "red ocean", "strategy canvas", "ERRC framework", "value innovation", "non-customers", "buyer utility map", "the market is too crowded", "how do we stand out", or "escape the price war". Also trigger when exploring a new market category, or finding underserved or non-customers. Covers the Four Actions Framework, Six Paths, buyer utility map, and value-cost trade-offs. For real strategy formulation and bad-strategy detection, see good-strategy-bad-strategy. For tech adoption strategy, see crossing-the-chasm. For product positioning, see obviously-awesome.
  • Ablue-ocean-strategyCreate uncontested market space using value innovation instead of competing head-to-head. Use when the user mentions "blue ocean", "red ocean", "strategy canvas", "ERRC framework", "value innovation", "non-customers", "buyer utility map", "the market is too crowded", "how do we stand out", or "escape the price war". Also trigger when exploring a new market category, or finding underserved or non-customers. Covers the Four Actions Framework, Six Paths, buyer utility map, and value-cost trade-offs. For real strategy formulation and bad-strategy detection, see good-strategy-bad-strategy. For tech adoption strategy, see crossing-the-chasm. For product positioning, see obviously-awesome.
  • Aclean-architectureStructure software around the Dependency Rule: source code dependencies point inward from frameworks to use cases to entities. Use when the user mentions "architecture layers", "dependency rule", "ports and adapters (hexagonal)", "onion architecture", "screaming architecture", "where should business logic go", "decouple from the database", "swap the framework without a rewrite", or "keep business rules independent". Also trigger when deciding which layer code belongs in, isolating core logic from infrastructure, defining module boundaries, or debating whether the framework should call your code or the reverse. Covers component principles, boundaries, and SOLID. For code-level quality, see clean-code. For domain modeling, see domain-driven-design.
  • Aclean-architectureStructure software around the Dependency Rule: source code dependencies point inward from frameworks to use cases to entities. Use when the user mentions "architecture layers", "dependency rule", "ports and adapters (hexagonal)", "onion architecture", "screaming architecture", "where should business logic go", "decouple from the database", "swap the framework without a rewrite", or "keep business rules independent". Also trigger when deciding which layer code belongs in, isolating core logic from infrastructure, defining module boundaries, or debating whether the framework should call your code or the reverse. Covers component principles, boundaries, and SOLID. For code-level quality, see clean-code. For domain modeling, see domain-driven-design.
  • Aclean-architectureStructure software around the Dependency Rule: source code dependencies point inward from frameworks to use cases to entities. Use when the user mentions "architecture layers", "dependency rule", "ports and adapters (hexagonal)", "onion architecture", "screaming architecture", "where should business logic go", "decouple from the database", "swap the framework without a rewrite", or "keep business rules independent". Also trigger when deciding which layer code belongs in, isolating core logic from infrastructure, defining module boundaries, or debating whether the framework should call your code or the reverse. Covers component principles, boundaries, and SOLID. For code-level quality, see clean-code. For domain modeling, see domain-driven-design.

All agent skills → · MCP servers