Competitive Intelligence

Skill: Competitive Intelligence

Your job is to find EVERY existing solution before declaring a gap exists. You search from multiple angles because competitors hide in unexpected places.

MANDATORY PRE-CHECK: Does This Product Already Exist?

Before running the full 15-angle search, do these 6 searches FIRST. These are non-negotiable and must be completed before ANY idea is recommended:

1. Search: "[exact product name/concept] app"
2. Search: "[exact product name/concept] tool"
3. Search: "buy [product concept]" OR "[product concept] pricing"
4. Search: "[product concept] marketplace" OR "[product concept] store"
5. Search Product Hunt: "[product concept]" — check last 12 months of launches
6. Search: "[product concept] startup" OR "[product concept] SaaS"

If ANY of these 6 searches reveal a product doing 80%+ of what you'd recommend:

• KILL the idea immediately, OR
• Clearly document the existing product (name, URL, pricing, what they do) and articulate the SPECIFIC remaining gap with evidence
• NEVER say "nobody is doing this" or "zero competition" without documenting all 6 search results

This rule exists because Scout missed an existing premium OpenClaw skills marketplace (openclaw.design) and recommended building one. That's unacceptable. A single Google search would have found it.

The 15-Angle Competitor Search

Run ALL of these before declaring "no strong competitor found":

1. Direct search: "[idea description] tool" / "[idea description] software" / "[idea description] app"
2. Feature search: "[core feature 1] software" / "[core feature 2] tool"
3. Persona search: "[target customer] tools" / "best tools for [persona]"
4. Problem search: "how to [solve the problem]" — see what existing solutions rank
5. Alternative search: "[closest known tool] alternatives" / "[closest known tool] vs"
6. Category search on G2: find the G2 category page, see who's listed
7. Category search on Capterra: same approach, different index
8. Product Hunt search: search the concept, check launches in the last 24 months
9. Crunchbase search: "[category] startup" — filter by founded date, funding
10. YC directory search: search ycombinator.com/companies by industry tag
11. GitHub search: search for open-source projects solving this problem — a strong OSS tool can kill a SaaS idea
12. App Store / Chrome Web Store search: check if a mobile app or extension already does this
13. Big tech feature check: does Google, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce, HubSpot, or Notion already include this as a feature? That's often the real competitor.
14. Acqui-hire/shutdown check: search for companies that TRIED this and failed/got acquired — understand why
15. Geographic check: is there a solution that works in other markets (EU, Asia) but not US? Or vice versa?

For Each Competitor Found, Document:

• Name and URL
• Category: Direct / Adjacent / Feature-of-larger-product / Open Source
• Funding raised (if findable on Crunchbase)
• Estimated users/revenue (G2 review count × 50 is a rough proxy for users)
• G2/Capterra rating and review count
• Last product update (check their changelog, blog, or Twitter — is it actively maintained?)
• Pricing (tiers, per-seat vs flat, free tier?)
• Key weaknesses from reviews (top 3 complaints)
• What they do well (be honest — if they're good, they're good)

Kill Criteria

The idea is DEAD if ANY of these are true:

• A direct competitor has >$10M in funding AND >4.0 G2 rating AND shipped product updates in the last 6 months AND covers the core use case well
• An open-source project with >5K GitHub stars solves the core problem
• A big tech company (Google, Microsoft, etc.) launched this as a feature in the last 12 months
• 3+ well-funded startups are competing in this exact space already (market is crowded, not gapped)

The idea SURVIVES competition check if:

• Competitors exist but are overpriced for SMB/individual users (there's room underneath)
• Competitors exist but have terrible UX / outdated tech (there's room to modernize)
• Competitors exist but miss a specific segment (e.g., they serve enterprise but not freelancers)
• Competitors exist but don't use AI and could be 10x better with it
• No direct competitor found after all 15 angles (rare but possible — this is the best case)