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Module 2: Audit Your Raw Material

You already own more business raw material than you think. This module inventories it properly: your skills, your experience, and your interests — then finds where the three overlap into something you can actually sell.

Years of raw material to mine

Skills inventory

Unfair advantage

Module 2: Audit Your Raw Material illustration

The Three Buckets

Everything you bring to a business fits in three buckets. Skills: things you can do (write, sell, organize, fix, teach). Experience: things you've lived through (industries worked, problems solved, roles held). Interests: things you'd read about for free (topics that pull your attention without anyone paying you).

Most people audit only one bucket. The job-hopper audits skills. The retiree audits experience. The dreamer audits interests. A real audit does all three, because the most durable businesses draw from at least two — and the rare, valuable ones draw from all three.

Fill each bucket with 10+ items. Be specific: not "marketing" but "writing email subject lines that get opened"; not "retail experience" but "three years handling returns at a busy store, including the angry ones." Specificity is what turns a bucket list into inventory you can price. Vague inventory can't be sold; specific inventory can.

Listed 10+ specific skills with evidence
Listed 10+ experiences (jobs, projects, life chapters)
Listed 10+ genuine interests (things I'd read about free)
Marked which skills sit in the fuel column

The three buckets

Skills

Things you can do
Write, sell, organize, fix, teach

Experience

Things you've lived through
Industries worked, problems solved, roles held

Interests

Things you'd read about for free
Topics that pull your attention without anyone paying you

Your turn: Draft your three buckets here — skills, experience, interests. Rough is fine; you'll refine it in the template below.

Build brief

Which single item across your three buckets surprises you — something valuable you forgot you had? Why is it valuable?

Turning Experience Into Assets

Experience becomes an asset when you translate it into someone else's language. "I managed a warehouse" is job history. "I ran a 12-person shift shipping 400 orders a day at 99% accuracy" is an asset — a buyer can picture what that does for them.

Take your five weightiest experiences and reframe each one three ways: what you did (the activity), what it produced (the outcome, with numbers), and who needs that outcome now (the buyer). The third reframe is the one most people never do, and it's the one that turns a résumé into a business. Nobody buys your past; they buy what your past can do for their future.

This also works for non-work experience. Raised three kids on one income? That's budgeting, logistics, and negotiation under pressure. Ran a church fundraiser? That's event planning, volunteer management, and persuasion. Every hard chapter of your life trained you in something — the translation step is what makes it sellable.

Example

Steal this template — the self-audit worksheet. Copy it into your notes app and fill every line:

SKILLS (with one-line proof each)
1.
2.
3.
...
EXPERIENCE (reframed: activity → outcome → who needs it)
1.
2.
3.
...
INTERESTS (things I'd read about for free)
1.
2.
3.
...
FUEL COLUMN: which of the above energize me? (mark with *)
DRAIN COLUMN: which of the above empty me? (mark with -)

Revisit this sheet monthly. It gets sharper every time — and it's the raw material for modules 4 and 5.

Translate it

Job history vs. asset

	Job history (sells nothing)	Asset (sells)
Warehouse	“I managed a warehouse”	“Ran a 12-person shift, 400 orders a day, 99% accuracy”
Fundraiser	Ran a church fundraiser	Event planning, volunteer management, persuasion
The reframe	Activity only	Activity → outcome → who needs it

Build brief

Reframe your single weightiest experience: what did you do, what did it produce (with numbers if you can), and who would pay for that outcome today?

Where They Overlap

Now the fun part. Lay your three buckets side by side and look for the Leverage Zone — the spot where a skill, an experience, and an interest all point at the same kind of work. That overlap is where you have the unfair advantage: you know the thing, you've lived the thing, and you care about the thing.

Draw three overlapping circles on paper — skills, experience, interests — and place your strongest items in them. Most people find 2–4 items sitting in the middle. Those are your lead candidates. A candidate that draws from only one circle isn't disqualified, but it's weaker: single-circle ideas compete on price, triple-circle ideas compete on depth nobody can fake.

Don't rush to crown a winner yet. Module 4 has a proper test for that. Right now you're just collecting candidates — aim for 3–5 overlap candidates written as one-liners: "helping busy parents meal-plan using my nutrition background and the cooking I already love." Specific enough to picture, open enough to explore.

The overlap

The Leverage Zone, in numbers

Overlapping circles

Skills, experience, interests — side by side.

2–4

Land in the middle

Your unfair advantage lives in the overlap.

3–5

Lead candidates

One-liners: specific enough to picture, open enough to explore.

Build brief

List your 3–5 Leverage Zone candidates as one-liners. Which one excites you most right now, and why?

Steal this template

Raw material

Skills: ___, ___, ___ Experiences: ___, ___ Unfair advantage: ___

Priya has three business ideas. Idea X uses her accounting skills (proven, but drains her). Idea Y uses her event-planning experience plus her love of hosting (two buckets, energizing). Idea Z is a trending opportunity with no connection to her background. Which is in her Leverage Zone?