Official skill · Strategy
ERRC grid and strategy canvas
Builds a strategy canvas of the factors an industry competes on and an ERRC grid, draws a new value curve, and tests it for focus, divergence, and a true tagline. Use it when your offering competes on the same features and price as everyone else.
AI skill
Have your AI find where to compete differently
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Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- Your offering competes on the same features and price as everyone else
- Before a relaunch, a new tier, or an offer for people who don't buy today
- The team keeps adding features to match rivals and costs keep rising
What you give it
- The offering and the rivals or alternatives compared
- The factors the industry competes on
- Evidence about buyers and noncustomers
- The decision the analysis serves
What you get
A strategy canvas table (industry vs proposed), an ERRC grid with reasons, the three checks with a tagline, cost and risk per move, and first tests.
How it works
- Fix the frame
- List the competing factors
- Score the industry's curve
- Look at buyers and noncustomers
- Ask the four questions of every factor
- Draw the proposed curve beside the industry's
- Run the three checks
- Note cost and risk
- End with decisions and first tests
Example
What you give it
We're Ledgerline, a two-person bookkeeping firm in Portland. We want a new offer for independent restaurants and need to decide by month end whether to relaunch around it. Local bookkeeping firms all compete on the same things: broad services (bookkeeping, payroll, tax filing, advisory), monthly in-person review meetings, a downtown office, a long monthly report pack (often 20+ pages), month-end close about 3 weeks after month end, general (not restaurant-specific) knowledge, and price — quotes we've seen are around $400 a month for a small restaurant. We interviewed 12 restaurant owners. 9 said they never read the monthly pack. 10 said what they want is food cost % and labour cost % every week, because by the time the monthly numbers arrive it's too late to fix the menu or the rota. 7 hate dropping off receipts and meeting at the office during service hours. 4 of the 12 do their own books in a spreadsheet because firms cost too much; they file taxes through a CPA anyway. We can pull sales and labour data from the two POS systems most of them use. We have a CPA we already refer tax work to. We don't know what price restaurants would pay.
What you get back (the start of it)
Strategy canvas and ERRC grid: Ledgerline's offer for independent restaurants
Decision this serves: relaunch around a restaurant offer by month end? · Compared with: local bookkeeping firms in Portland · Prepared for: Ledgerline · Date: [date]
Frame
Bookkeeping for independent restaurants in Portland, compared with general local bookkeeping firms and with owners doing their own books in a spreadsheet.
Strategy canvas
Offering level, 1 = little or none, 5 = the most anyone offers. Scores are Ledgerline's judgment from the interviews and the quotes it has seen.
| Competing factor | Industry today | Proposed | Change | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breadth of services | 5 | 2 | Reduce | Owners file taxes through a CPA anyway (4 of 12 interviews); Ledgerline already refers tax work |
| Monthly in-person meetings | 4 | 0 | Eliminate | 7 of 12 dislike meeting during service hours |
| Downtown office | 4 | 0 | Eliminate | Owners don't want to come in during service hours (7 of 12) [check: whether any owner values the office] |
| Length of monthly report pack | 5 | 1 | Reduce | 9 of 12 never read it |
| Speed of numbers | 2 | 5 | Raise | 10 of 12 want weekly figures; close today takes about 3 weeks |
| Restaurant-specific knowledge | 2 | 5 | Raise | Owners want food and labour cost %, restaurant measures |
| Price | 3 | [check: test price] | Reduce [check] | Quotes about $400 a month; price restaurants would pay unknown |
| Weekly food and labour cost % from the POS | 0 | 5 | Create | 10 of 12 asked for it; POS data available |
| No receipt drop-off (photo or POS feed) | 0 | 4 | Create | 7 of 12 hate dropping off receipts |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
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Changelog
- v1.0.1 · · Example: the tagline promises the numbers "every week", as the input asks, not "every Monday", which the input never says.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- Strategy Canvas - Blue Ocean Strategy Tools and Frameworks (read 2026-11-04)
- Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid (ERRC Grid) - Blue Ocean Strategy (read 2026-11-04)
- 5 Compelling Strategy Canvas Examples You Can Learn From - Blue Ocean Strategy (read 2026-11-04)
- Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review (October 2004) (read 2026-11-04)
- Blue Ocean Strategy (Harvard Business School Press) - Publishers Weekly review, 2005 (read 2026-11-04)
- The Value Curve Model - Mind Tools (read 2026-11-04)