Company Research

Purpose

Conduct a structured deep-dive analysis of a competitor or company covering their business model, market position, product strategy, and strategic implications for your own product decisions. Produces a reusable research brief that feeds into positioning, competitive battle cards, and strategy sessions.

Key Concepts

Research Framework

Anti-Patterns

• Not opinion: Back claims with evidence (public filings, product teardowns, reviews)
• Not static: Companies change — date your research and revisit quarterly
• Not exhaustive: Focus on what's strategically relevant to YOUR decisions

Application

Step 1: Company Overview

## Company Research: [Company Name]
**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Researcher:** [Name]
**Purpose:** [Why we're researching this company]

### Overview
- **Founded:** [Year]
- **Headquarters:** [Location]
- **Employees:** [Count]
- **Funding/Revenue:** [Stage, amount, or public revenue]
- **Target Market:** [Primary segments]

Step 2: Business Model Analysis

### Business Model
- **Revenue model:** [SaaS, marketplace, usage-based, etc.]
- **Pricing tiers:** [Free / Starter / Pro / Enterprise — key price points]
- **Primary buyer:** [Who signs the check]
- **Sales motion:** [Self-serve, inside sales, enterprise sales]
- **GTM channels:** [Content, PLG, outbound, partnerships]

Step 3: Product Analysis

### Product
- **Core value prop:** [One sentence]
- **Key features:** [Top 5 differentiating features]
- **Platform:** [Web, mobile, desktop, API]
- **Integrations:** [Key integrations]
- **UX quality:** [Assessment: excellent / good / functional / poor]
- **Recent launches:** [Last 2-3 major releases]

Step 4: Strengths & Weaknesses

### SWOT Snapshot
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|-----------|------------|
| [S1] | [W1] |
| [S2] | [W2] |

| Opportunities | Threats |
|---------------|---------|
| [O1] | [T1] |
| [O2] | [T2] |

Step 5: Strategic Implications

### What This Means for Us
- **Threat level:** [High / Medium / Low]
- **Where they beat us:** [Specific areas]
- **Where we beat them:** [Specific areas]
- **Strategic response:** [What we should do differently]
- **Watch signals:** [What to monitor going forward]

Examples

✅ Good Example

## Company Research: Notion
**Date:** 2026-02-15 | **Purpose:** Evaluate overlap with our PM documentation tool

### Business Model
- Revenue: ~$10B valuation (2024), SaaS subscription
- Pricing: Free (limited), Plus ($10/mo), Business ($18/mo), Enterprise (custom)
- Sales: PLG-driven with emerging enterprise sales

### Strategic Implications
- **Threat level:** Medium — overlapping in documentation, but not PM-specific workflows
- **Where they beat us:** General-purpose flexibility, brand awareness, template marketplace
- **Where we beat them:** Purpose-built PM workflows, deeper analytics, better integrations
- **Response:** Double down on PM-specific value; don't try to out-Notion Notion

❌ Bad Example

Notion is a popular tool. They have lots of users. We should watch them.

Quality Rubric

Common Pitfalls

Pitfall 1: Feature Comparison Without Strategy

Symptom: Side-by-side feature checklist with no "so what?"

Fix: Features are table stakes. Analyze strategy — where are they investing, and what does that tell you about where the market is going?

Pitfall 2: Ignoring Weak Signals

Symptom: Only analyzing public announcements.

Fix: Look at job postings (what they're hiring for), GitHub activity, patent filings, conference talks. These reveal future direction.

References

Related Skills

• skills/discovery/competitive-battle-card/SKILL.md — Distill research into a sales-ready battle card
• skills/strategy/swot-analysis/SKILL.md — Full SWOT framework
• skills/strategy/positioning-statement/SKILL.md — Position against competitors

Skill type: Component Domain: Discovery & Research