Design Play, turn a working motion into a repeatable play

A "play" is the smallest unit of repeatable outbound: one signal, one persona, one channel, one cadence, one offer ladder. Naming and structuring it the same way every time is what turns ad-hoc outreach into a system.

This skill borrows the framework Cursor's internal growth team uses (generate-outbound-play-ideas), stripped of the proprietary signals and metrics. The framework is sound. The signals are yours to define.

When to design a play vs run one-off outreach

Design a play when:

• A signal has produced replies twice in a row from different people.
• You can describe the signal in one sentence without using the word "interested".
• The same persona is the buyer across both replies.

Don't design a play when:

• You've sent fewer than 25 messages of any kind.
• The replies came from prospects you already knew.
• The signal is "I think they'd care".

The point is to name what's already working, not to invent it.