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