# Competitive Analysis

> Analyze competitors including direct and adjacent products, positioning, pricing, and feature gaps. Use whenever the user mentions competitive analysis, competitor research, market positioning, competitive landscape, or needs to understand who else is in their space.

- Skill: `dragoon0x/competitive-analysis` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dragoon0x/competitive-analysis`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dragoon0x/competitive-analysis/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Marketing & Growth
- Author: dragoon0x (https://skillmd.com/u/dragoon0x)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dragoon0x/competitive-analysis

---


# competitive-analysis

competitive analysis exists to find gaps you can occupy, not to feel better about your current position.

## the categories

### direct competitors

same job, same audience. customers consider them an alternative to you.

### adjacent competitors

overlapping job or overlapping audience but not both. customers may not consider them today, but could.

### substitutes

different category that solves the same underlying job (e.g. for a meeting scheduling tool, the substitute is "doing it manually over email").

## per competitor, capture

```
name: [company name]
category: [direct / adjacent / substitute]

positioning
  the one sentence they lead with: [from homepage hero]
  who it speaks to: [target audience]

audience
  who their marketing speaks to (size of company, role, sophistication)
  who their pricing implies they want
  who their case studies feature

pricing
  model: [subscription / usage / freemium / one-time]
  tiers: [list with price points and core inclusions]
  notable: [free tier limits, enterprise gating]

product
  core capabilities: [3-5 bullets]
  notable strengths: [what they do better than others]
  notable gaps: [what they don't do well or at all]
  things only they do: [list]
  things they don't do that customers complain about: [list]

go-to-market
  sales motion: [self-serve / sales-assisted / enterprise sales]
  channel partners: [list]
  notable integrations: [list]

team and traction (only if relevant and discoverable)
  funding stage and amount
  team size and key hires
  publicly known customers

evidence sources: [where each claim above comes from]
```

## positioning map

after the competitor table, build a 2x2 (or 3x3) with axes that matter for the decision the audience is making.

axes that often work:

- price (low / high)
- complexity (simple / powerful)
- audience (smb / enterprise)
- focus (broad platform / specialized tool)

place each competitor on the map. label gaps in the map. those gaps are the positioning opportunities.

## gap analysis

```
gap 1: [specific underserved segment or job]
  evidence: [why we believe this gap exists — customer interviews, support patterns, competitor complaints]
  size: [rough sense of how many customers care]
  defensibility: [why we could win here and not be copied immediately]

gap 2...
```

## what to avoid

- listing features in a checklist as a substitute for positioning analysis
- assuming product detail is the basis of competition (it usually isn't)
- inventing customer concerns about competitors you can't cite
- ranking competitors as winners and losers (it's a map, not a ladder)
- updating once a year (this needs quarterly revisits at minimum)