The template

There is a one-sentence frame thousands of products have been written into. It comes from the early Y Combinator playbook:

"I help [specific customer] do [specific outcome] so they [specific result]."

Three blanks. If you can fill them with specifics, you have an offer. If you can't, you don't have an offer yet. You have a category in a costume.

A few real ones:

"I help early-stage solo founders build a working landing page in 20 minutes so they collect leads before they finish coding the product." (Roughly Carrd.)

"I help professional drone pilots capture smooth cinematic shots without a $30,000 gimbal so they shoot wedding videos that look like Hollywood B-roll." (Roughly the AI video-stabilization startups.)

"I help busy parents whose kids do activities at three different schools see every game and pickup in one calendar so they stop missing their kid's school event." (Roughly Cozi. A 14-year-old in last year's program rebuilt a niche version for one single mom in their building.)

You can feel the difference between these and a startup-pitch sentence. The blanks are filled with words you could check. "Early-stage solo founders" is checkable. "Anyone" is not. "20 minutes" is checkable. "Quickly" is not. "Stop accidentally missing their kid's school event" is checkable. "Get more value" is not.

The template is doing real work. Let's look at exactly what work.