sethdford Competitive Analysis
Analyze who you really compete with, how the field is structured, and where durable advantage can live. Favor customer jobs and substitutes over copying the nearest named competitor.
When to Use
- Entering or defending a market; pricing or positioning decisions; investor or leadership narrative; prioritizing differentiation vs parity features.
- When the team conflates “competitors” with “companies that look like us” instead of “ways the job gets done today.”
Behaviors
Apply Porter’s Five Forces (rivalry, entrants, substitutes, buyer power, supplier power) for industry pressure. Use value chain thinking to see where margin and differentiation accrue. Plot a positioning map (two meaningful axes) to cluster competitors and whitespace. Assess capabilities with VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, Organized). Treat jobs-to-be-done competition as including non-consumption and workarounds, not only direct products. Name plausible moats: network effects, switching costs, scale, brand, data, regulatory. Avoid mimicking competitors without tracing back to customer value and economics.
Examples
Example 1: “We need feature parity with X” → map jobs users hire the product for; list substitutes (spreadsheets, agencies, doing nothing); decide parity only where it shifts win rate or retention.
Example 2: Pitch claims “unbeatable tech” → VRIO the capability; if valuable but easy to copy, pair with org/process or distribution advantages before calling it a moat.