# Opportunity Gap Finder

> Discovers and ranks evidence-backed opportunities by tracing unmet needs, underserved outcomes, weak alternatives, and viable ways to create value in any domain. Use when someone wants to identify a business, service, personal project, community initiative, physical product, creative pursuit, research direction, or other worthwhile problem to pursue.

- Skill: `hashlips/opportunity-gap-finder` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 11 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add hashlips/opportunity-gap-finder`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/hashlips/opportunity-gap-finder/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Research & Search
- Author: HashLips (https://skillmd.com/u/hashlips)
- Updated: 2026-09-21
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/hashlips/opportunity-gap-finder

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# Opportunity Gap Finder

Turn an open domain, observed problem, change, capability, audience, or early idea into ranked opportunity hypotheses and a validation plan. Find valuable progress that people or organisations struggle to make, then determine whether the user has a credible way to help. Investigate before ideating and never imply that success is guaranteed.

## Core Rules

1. **Discover before inventing** — Never present an assumed problem, demand level, market fact, or success probability as established.
2. **Do not skip the problem** — Trace context → actors → current behaviour → friction or blocked progress → root cause → need → opportunity mechanism.
3. **Stay domain- and format-agnostic** — Do not default to software, commercial ventures, or scalable products. The best response may be a service, physical intervention, practice, programme, community, research effort, policy, creative work, or a decision not to proceed.
4. **Define success for this user** — Clarify desired impact, income or non-financial value, available resources, timeframe, geography, risk tolerance, motivation, and ethical boundaries before ranking.
5. **Ask progressively** — Ask 3–6 related questions per round unless the user requests a full questionnaire or a rapid scan.
6. **Follow evidence** — Investigate strong signals and contradictions instead of completing a static questionnaire.
7. **Compare against reality** — Include direct competitors, indirect substitutes, manual workarounds, doing nothing, and failed prior attempts.
8. **Separate attractiveness from confidence** — A promising hypothesis with weak evidence is not a recommendation to build.
9. **Prefer behaviour over opinion** — Separate attention, complaints, stated intent, attempted solutions, commitment, adoption, retention, payment, and measurable impact.
10. **No guaranteed-success language** — Explain uncertainty, dependencies, disconfirming evidence, and the cheapest next test.

## Workflow

1. Choose a mode and establish the user's pursuit criteria — [references/session-rules.md](references/session-rules.md).
2. Frame the search from the supplied domain, actor, problem, change, capability, asset, or idea.
3. Investigate actors, behaviour, frictions, blocked progress, causes, alternatives, and needs — [references/investigation-phases.md](references/investigation-phases.md).
4. Gather and grade relevant evidence; distinguish sourced facts, user observations, inferences, and unknowns — [references/evidence.md](references/evidence.md).
5. Generate materially different opportunity mechanisms using [references/archetypes.md](references/archetypes.md), then screen and rank them with [references/scoring.md](references/scoring.md).
6. Stress-test the leaders and choose the cheapest tests of their riskiest assumptions — [references/validation.md](references/validation.md).
7. Deliver a decision-ready brief — [references/opportunity-brief.md](references/opportunity-brief.md).

Use [references/questioning-logic.md](references/questioning-logic.md) to branch the interview rather than asking every question.

## Output Contract

For a completed guided or evidence-assisted investigation, include:

- Pursuit criteria and scope
- Context and relevant actors, when applicable
- Current behaviour, alternatives, and non-consumption, when applicable
- Ranked frictions or blocked outcomes with evidence strength
- Root causes and outcome-focused need statements
- 3–5 distinct opportunity hypotheses, or fewer when justified
- Comparative ranking, evidence strength, consistency, resulting confidence, and kill factors
- Recommended lead opportunity and value proposition
- Smallest useful validation plan
- Unknowns, disconfirming evidence, and conditions that would change the decision
- Decision: investigate now | validate before committing | pursue a small version | monitor | reframe | reject for now

For a rapid scan, provide only:

- scope and assumed pursuit criteria,
- 2–5 provisional search territories or opportunity hypotheses,
- evidence available, evidence missing, and major caveats,
- the most useful next investigation step.

For open search, first deliver a checkpoint containing:

- pursuit criteria and accessible assets,
- 2–3 search territories with selection reasons,
- the first evidence-gathering questions for each.

A full investigation is complete only when it yields either one sufficiently supported opportunity with a validation plan or a clear conclusion that evidence does not justify pursuit and exactly what to learn next. A rapid scan or open-search checkpoint is complete when its smaller output contract is met; never present it as a validated recommendation. Do not manufacture an opportunity to satisfy the format.

## Reference Index

- **Modes, intake, session behaviour, and language:** [references/session-rules.md](references/session-rules.md)
- **End-to-end investigation sequence:** [references/investigation-phases.md](references/investigation-phases.md)
- **Evidence collection and confidence rules:** [references/evidence.md](references/evidence.md)
- **Screening, comparative ranking, and kill factors:** [references/scoring.md](references/scoring.md)
- **Stress tests and validation experiments:** [references/validation.md](references/validation.md)
- **Final brief and completion rules:** [references/opportunity-brief.md](references/opportunity-brief.md)
- **Dynamic interview branching:** [references/questioning-logic.md](references/questioning-logic.md)
- **Gap archetypes for broad solution discovery:** [references/archetypes.md](references/archetypes.md)
- **Quality gate and anti-patterns:** [references/quality-checklist.md](references/quality-checklist.md)
- **Cross-domain worked examples:** [references/example-cross-domain.md](references/example-cross-domain.md)

## When To Use This Skill

- Exploring a broad industry, community, place, technology, trend, problem, capability, or behaviour for worthwhile opportunities.
- Testing whether an early business, service, project, initiative, product, research, or creative idea addresses a meaningful gap.
- Comparing possible pursuits against evidence, alternatives, constraints, value, risk, and personal fit.
- Designing a low-cost next step before making a larger commitment.