90 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
90 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
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# Competitor Analysis Frameworks
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## Landscape Mapping
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### Direct vs Indirect Competitors
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| Type | Definition | Example (CRM) |
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|------|------------|---------------|
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| **Direct** | Same solution, same customer | Salesforce, HubSpot |
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| **Indirect** | Different solution, same problem | Spreadsheets, email |
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| **Potential** | Could enter your space | Microsoft, Google |
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### Positioning Matrix
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Map competitors on 2 axes relevant to your market:
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- Price vs Features
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- Enterprise vs SMB
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- Vertical vs Horizontal
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- Simple vs Complex
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Find the white space — where are customers underserved?
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## Review Mining
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### Where to Look
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- **B2B SaaS:** G2, Capterra, TrustRadius
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- **Consumer Apps:** App Store, Play Store
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- **Physical Products:** Amazon, specialized forums
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- **Services:** Yelp, Google Reviews, industry forums
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### What to Extract
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1. **Recurring complaints** — Same issue mentioned 10+ times = real problem
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2. **Feature requests** — What's missing from existing solutions?
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3. **Use case patterns** — How do different segments use the product?
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4. **Switching triggers** — Why did they leave their previous solution?
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### Template: Complaint Frequency Matrix
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| Complaint | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
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|-----------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
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| Slow support | 47 mentions | 12 mentions | 89 mentions |
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| Confusing UI | 31 mentions | 56 mentions | 8 mentions |
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| Too expensive | 22 mentions | 3 mentions | 15 mentions |
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## Competitive Intelligence Sources
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### Public Information
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- **Financials:** 10-K, 10-Q (public companies), Crunchbase funding
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- **Strategy signals:** Job postings, press releases, conference talks
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- **Product changes:** Changelog, Product Hunt launches, app updates
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### Ethical Intelligence Gathering
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✅ Public filings and press releases
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✅ Published pricing pages
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✅ User reviews and forums
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✅ Conference presentations
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✅ Open source contributions
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❌ Fake customer inquiries
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❌ Social engineering employees
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❌ Scraping behind paywalls
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❌ Accessing internal documents
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## Feature Comparison Matrix
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### Template
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| Feature | Your Product | Competitor A | Competitor B | Priority |
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|---------|-------------|-------------|-------------|----------|
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| Core feature 1 | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | Must-have |
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| Core feature 2 | 🔄 Building | ✅ | ✅ | Must-have |
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| Advanced feature | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | Nice-to-have |
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| Unique differentiator | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | Differentiator |
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### How to Prioritize
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1. **Must-have:** Without this, customers won't consider you
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2. **Differentiator:** This is why they'll choose you over alternatives
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3. **Nice-to-have:** Adds value but doesn't drive purchase decisions
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## Market Share Estimation
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When no public data exists:
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1. **Traffic-based:** SimilarWeb, Alexa (if available)
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2. **Employee-based:** Revenue per employee benchmarks × headcount
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3. **Funding-based:** Typical revenue multiple for stage × funding raised
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4. **App download-based:** Download counts → conversion assumptions → paying users
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**Always caveat estimates** with methodology and confidence level.
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