#!/usr/bin/env agent

Find Prospects Skill

Search online communities for people who have problems your product solves.

Related Skills

• Biz/Skills/ParseReddit.md - Reddit JSON API parsing
• Biz/Skills/ParseHackerNews.md - HN Firebase API parsing

Input

You need these parameters (provided in the task or ask the user):

• product: What product/service are you finding prospects for?
• problem: What problem does it solve?
• communities: Where to search (reddit, hackernews, twitter, forums)
• search_terms: Keywords that indicate someone has this problem

Process

Phase 1: Search

1. Construct 3-5 targeted search queries combining:

   • Site filter: site:reddit.com or site:news.ycombinator.com
   • Problem keywords from search_terms
   • Frustration/desire signals: “wish”, “looking for”, “need”, “anyone know”, “is there”

2. Run each search with web_search, collect promising URLs

Phase 2: Deep Extraction

For each promising Reddit URL, use the ParseReddit skill (Biz/Skills/ParseReddit.md):

curl -s -H "User-Agent: agentbot/1.0" "REDDIT_URL.json" | jq '{
  author: .[0].data.children[0].data.author,
  title: .[0].data.children[0].data.title,
  body: .[0].data.children[0].data.selftext,
  score: .[0].data.children[0].data.score,
  num_comments: .[0].data.children[0].data.num_comments,
  created: .[0].data.children[0].data.created_utc,
  subreddit: .[0].data.children[0].data.subreddit,
  comments: [.[1].data.children[:3][] | .data | {author, body, score}]
}'

For Hacker News URLs, use the ParseHackerNews skill (Biz/Skills/ParseHackerNews.md):

# Extract item ID from URL like news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41824973
ID=41824973
curl -s "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/$ID.json" | jq '{
  author: .by,
  title: .title,
  text: .text,
  score: .score,
  time: .time,
  comments: .descendants
}'

Phase 3: Qualify

For each extracted post, determine priority:

• High priority:

  • Explicitly asking for a solution (“is there an app”, “looking for”, “anyone know”)
  • Recent (< 3 months old)
  • Has engagement (comments, upvotes)

• Medium priority:

  • Expressing pain but not actively searching
  • Older but still relevant

• Skip:

  • 6 months old

  • Already solved
  • Using a competitor
  • Tangential mention

Phase 4: Output

Output Format

## Prospects Found

### High Priority

1. **u/username** in r/subreddit
   - Posted: YYYY-MM-DD (X months ago)
   - Score: N points, M comments
   - Quote: "Exact quote from post..."
   - URL: https://reddit.com/...
   - Why: [Specific reason this is high priority]

### Medium Priority

2. **hn_user** on Hacker News
   - Posted: YYYY-MM-DD
   - Quote: "..."
   - URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=...
   - Why: [Reason]

### Skipped
- URL - Reason (too old, already solved, etc.)

### Search Queries Used
- query 1
- query 2

### Summary
- Queries run: X
- Posts examined: Y
- High priority: Z
- Medium priority: W

### Recommended Actions
1. [Specific suggestion for top prospect]
2. [Subreddit to monitor]

Quality Checklist

Before outputting, verify:

• Every username is REAL (from JSON, not “UNKNOWN”)
• Every quote is EXACT text from the post
• Dates are converted from Unix timestamps
• URLs work

Example

Product: PodcastItLater - converts articles to podcasts
Problem: Too many articles/newsletters to read, want to listen instead
Communities: reddit, hackernews
Search terms:
  - "wish I could listen to articles"
  - "newsletter text to speech"
  - "too many newsletters to read"
  - "article backlog"