--- name: suede-free-tools description: "Suede-affiliated engineering-as-marketing strategy for selecting, scoring, and scoping calculators, graders, generators, and other free interactive tools. Use when the user wants a lead, link, education, or product-adoption asset with a measurable path to the paid product. NOT FOR: downloadable lead assets (use suede-lead-magnets), implementation of a full website (use suede-site-alchemy), or search diagnostics (use suede-seo-audit)." metadata: version: 2.0.0 --- # Suede Free-Tool Growth Strategy Suede uses engineering as marketing when a genuinely useful tool can create qualified discovery and a natural bridge to the paid product. Select, score, and scope the smallest maintainable calculator, grader, generator, or utility whose output earns attention rather than merely capturing it. ## Initial Assessment **Check for product marketing context first:** If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task. Before designing a tool strategy, understand: 1. **Business Context** - What's the core product? Who is the target audience? What problems do they have? 2. **Goals** - Lead generation? SEO/traffic? Brand awareness? Product education? 3. **Resources** - Technical capacity to build? Ongoing maintenance bandwidth? Budget for promotion? --- ## Core Principles ### 1. Solve a Real Problem - Tool must provide genuine value - Solves a problem your audience actually has - Useful even without your main product ### 2. Adjacent to Core Product - Related to what you sell - Natural path from tool to product - Educates on problem you solve ### 3. Simple and Focused - Does one thing well - Low friction to use - Immediate value ### 4. Worth the Investment - Lead value × expected leads > build cost + maintenance --- ## Tool Types Overview | Type | Examples | Best For | |------|----------|----------| | Calculators | ROI, savings, pricing estimators | Decisions involving numbers | | Generators | Templates, policies, names | Creating something quickly | | Analyzers | Website graders, SEO auditors | Evaluating existing work | | Testers | Meta tag preview, speed tests | Checking if something works | | Libraries | Icon sets, templates, snippets | Reference material | | Interactive | Tutorials, playgrounds, quizzes | Learning/understanding | **For detailed tool types and examples**: See [references/tool-types.md](references/tool-types.md) --- ## Ideation Framework ### Start with Pain Points 1. **What problems does your audience Google?** - Search query research, common questions 2. **What manual processes are tedious?** - Spreadsheet tasks, repetitive calculations 3. **What do they need before buying your product?** - Assessments, planning, comparisons 4. **What information do they wish they had?** - Data they can't easily access, benchmarks ### Validate the Idea - **Search demand**: Is there search volume? How competitive? - **Uniqueness**: What exists? How can you be 10x better? - **Lead quality**: Does this audience match buyers? - **Build feasibility**: How complex? Can you scope an MVP? --- ## Lead Capture Strategy ### Gating Options | Approach | Pros | Cons | |----------|------|------| | Fully gated | Maximum capture | Lower usage | | Partially gated | Balance of both | Common pattern | | Ungated + optional | Maximum reach | Lower capture | | Ungated entirely | Pure SEO/brand | No direct leads | ### Lead Capture Best Practices - Value exchange clear: "Get your full report" - Minimal friction: Email only - Show preview of what they'll get - Optional: Segment by asking one qualifying question --- ## SEO Considerations ### Keyword Strategy **Tool landing page**: "[thing] calculator", "[thing] generator", "free [tool type]" **Supporting content**: "How to [use case]", "What is [concept]" ### Link Building Free tools attract links because: - Genuinely useful (people reference them) - Unique (can't link to just any page) - Shareable (social amplification) --- ## Build vs. Buy ### Build Custom When: Unique concept, core to brand, high strategic value, have dev capacity ### Use No-Code Tools Options: Outgrow, Involve.me, Typeform, Tally, Bubble, Webflow When: Speed to market, limited dev resources, testing concept ### Embed Existing When: Something good exists, white-label available, not core differentiator --- ## MVP Scope ### Minimum Viable Tool 1. Core functionality only—does the one thing, works reliably 2. Essential UX—clear input, obvious output, mobile works 3. Basic lead capture—email collection, leads go somewhere useful ### What to Skip Initially Account creation, saving results, advanced features, perfect design, every edge case --- ## Evaluation Scorecard Rate each factor 1-5: | Factor | Score | |--------|-------| | Search demand exists | ___ | | Audience match to buyers | ___ | | Uniqueness vs. existing | ___ | | Natural path to product | ___ | | Build feasibility | ___ | | Maintenance burden (inverse) | ___ | | Link-building potential | ___ | | Share-worthiness | ___ | **25+**: Strong candidate | **15-24**: Promising | **<15**: Reconsider --- ## Task-Specific Questions 1. What existing tools does your audience use for workarounds? 2. How do you currently generate leads? 3. What technical resources are available? 4. What's the timeline and budget? --- ## Boundaries - Do not claim search demand, lead volume, link potential, or build feasibility without evidence and dated assumptions. - Do not build, deploy, publish, collect leads, or connect production data unless the user authorizes implementation. - Do not invent tool outputs or use a calculator as disguised professional, legal, medical, or financial advice. - Do not decide pricing, data-retention, or consent policy for the user. ## Routing - Use `suede-lead-magnets` for downloadable assets and `suede-site-alchemy` for the public conversion surface. - Use `suede-seo-audit` for search validation and `suede-analytics` for usage measurement. - Use `suede-emails` for the post-capture lifecycle sequence.