Welcome to Prime Positioning
Build your library of Flywheel Prompts — to make strategic decisions at opportunity speed.
Let me tell you what this is—and what it’s not.
Prime Positioning teaches Flywheel Thinking — the systematic capability for strategic clarity.
Every Sunday, I publish strategic analysis showing how companies claim category ownership instead of competing on borrowed ground.
Every Wednesday, I publish a complete Flywheel Diagnostic, delivered as an AI prompt, that you can run on your company, your competitors, or any strategic situation.
This isn’t a place where I share opinions about strategy.
It’s a place where strategy gets diagnosed.
Who this is for
This is for strategy leaders at growth-stage companies ($10M–$500M revenue) who:
Make real strategic tradeoffs
Operate in competitive environments
Feel momentum slowing and want to know why
Prefer systematic frameworks over motivational content
Don’t want more advice—just better judgment
Red flags (who this is NOT for):
If you’re looking for motivation, inspiration, or generic frameworks, this probably won’t land.
If you want LinkedIn-friendly hot takes or business book summaries, you’re in the wrong place.
If you want a way to see what others miss—and move before they can—you’re in the right place.
Why this exists
Most strategies don’t fail because people are dumb or lazy.
They fail because something is off—and no one can quite see what it is yet.
The meetings keep happening. The plans look reasonable. Execution is busy.
But momentum slows anyway.
By the time performance numbers make the problem obvious, the window to act has already closed.
This newsletter exists for that earlier moment—the one where you can feel drag, but you can’t yet name it.
The method behind the diagnostics
When strategy stalls, it’s almost never one thing.
It’s misalignment across five elements:
Positioning - where and how you’re trying to win
Prioritization - what you’re actually betting on (and what you’re not)
Process - how decisions and work really move
Performance - the signals guiding behavior
People - who owns judgment and accountability
I think of these as a flywheel.
When they reinforce each other, momentum compounds. When they don’t, effort leaks—quietly at first, then all at once.
A Flywheel Diagnostic makes that misalignment visible before results force the issue.
What makes this different
Traditional consulting: “We’ll analyze your positioning for $50K.”
Strategy content: “Here’s how to think about positioning.”
Prime Positioning: “Here’s the exact diagnostic to run—on your strategy or your competitors’.”
The format itself makes the difference.
Because strategy doesn’t actually happen in documents.
It happens in conversation. In half-formed thoughts. In tradeoffs that don’t fit neatly on slides.
Prompts are closer to how strategic thinking really works.
They force you to:
Articulate assumptions
Surface constraints
Confront tradeoffs
Make a call
Reading explains. Prompts activate.
Here’s how to join:
Prime Positioning Subscription Tiers
Free – Stay In the Loop
Episodic strategic analysis — showing how companies claim category ownership.
You'll see pattern recognition across markets, category design principles in action, and how companies own customer transformation versus competing on borrowed variables.
This builds conceptual foundation for your own Prime Positioning.
Paid ($20/month or $200/year) – Flywheel Prompt Library
Everything in Strategy Episodes, plus:
One Flywheel Prompt delivered every Wednesday.
Build your library of strategic thinking tools — reusable prompts you can run on your company's strategy, competitor positioning, stalled initiatives, strategic planning cycles, or leadership decisions whenever you need clarity.
By year-end, you'll have a complete Strategy Flywheel toolkit covering all five strategic territories.
Founder Member ($350/year) – Inside The Owner’s Box
Everything in Flywheel Diagnostics, plus:
Early access to strategy playbooks - frameworks like the Ascending Transformation Model, Prime Positioning Method, and People Mobilization Playbook before they’re published
Owner’s Box quarterly workshops - sessions developing and testing new strategic frameworks
Validation partner status - your strategic challenges become case studies that shape methodology refinement
This tier is for strategy leaders who want to own the methodology alongside me—not just apply it.
What happens over time
This isn’t something you read once and move on from.
It’s something you come back to—because the same diagnostic can be run again and again as context changes.
Throughout the year, you’ll receive diagnostics targeting each flywheel element:
Positioning - find competitor blind spots and exploitable territory
Prioritization - identify which constraints actually matter
Process - measure decision velocity versus coordination overhead
Performance - validate whether you’re measuring transformation or activity
People - assess organizational alignment around strategy
As you collect Flywheel Prompts and practice Flywheel Thinking, something happens:
Positioning, priorities, process, performance, and people stop working at cross purposes.
That state is what I call Prime Positioning.
You’re not consuming content. You’re building a strategic thinking library and developing systematic judgment capability.
Where to start
If you’re new here, these three pieces will orient you:
Start with any of these. When you’re ready to run your own diagnostics, subscribe to Flywheel Diagnostics.
Who’s behind Prime Positioning?
I’m Michael Thomas. I build the Strategy Flywheel framework and the Prime Positioning methodology—systematic diagnostics that help growth-stage companies escape borrowed positioning.
The frameworks are validated through real transformations: $19.5M revenue increases, 40% cycle time reductions, and strategic repositionings that shifted entire funding bases.
This newsletter is where I develop and test these diagnostics in public before they become consulting engagements and strategy playbooks.
Ready to start?
Connect on LinkedIn — where I share work-in-progress thinking between issues.
