Researching Your Competition

📄 Download the Sheet

✅ Competitive Analysis Spreadsheet

Organizing Competitive Analysis to Move From Research to Actionable Insights

Congratulations on taking the next step in refining your product and market strategy! In this lesson, we’ll walk through how to organize and leverage a Competitive Analysis Sheet—turning hours of research into a clear, actionable plan that supports your product’s differentiation and growth.

Why Competitive Analysis Matters

Competitive analysis isn’t just about knowing what your rivals are doing. It’s about understanding:

• Direct competitors—who offer similar solutions.
• Indirect competitors—who might satisfy the same customer needs in a different way.
• The status quo—what your potential customers are doing right now, including doing nothing at all.

Understanding these dynamics helps you craft a product and message that doesn’t just look good on paper but resonates with real market needs and motivations.

Step 1: Setting Up the Competitive Analysis Sheet

We start by populating our Competitive Analysis Spreadsheet, which is available for download:
👉 Download the Competitive Analysis Spreadsheet

Start with the Competitors tab, where you’ll list:
✅ Names and websites of competitors (both direct and indirect)
✅ Key products or solutions they offer
✅ Public perception and sentiment—how do customers feel about these solutions?
✅ Approximate market share or presence (large, medium, small)
✅ Emerging trends or niche players worth watching

💡 Pro Tip: Include competitors from across price points and market segments to get a full picture.

Step 2: Identify Competitor Features and Benefits

Move to the Good, Bad, Ugly tab and list:

• Features—tangible elements of the competitor’s product.
• Benefits—the outcomes or experiences those features provide.
• Perception—how customers view these features and benefits.

For each competitor, capture what’s working, what’s lacking, and what sets them apart. Don’t forget to add your own product into the mix for a true side-by-side comparison.

Step 3: Consider the Status Quo and Indirect Alternatives

Remember, sometimes your biggest competitor isn’t another company—it’s inertia. Capture the existing processes or solutions your target customers might be using, even if they’re not ideal. This can include:

• Manual processes
• Partial solutions (like a load balancing hitch in the RV example)
• Doing nothing at all

Identify what motivates customers to stick with these solutions and what barriers they face in switching.

Step 4: Start Synthesizing Insights

As you populate your sheet, pay attention to:
🔎 Differentiators—unique aspects of your product that stand out.
⚠️ Risks—areas where your product might underperform or where the market has strong expectations.
🌟 Opportunities—gaps in the market, emerging needs, or perceptions you can leverage.

Use the Differentiators, Risks, Opportunities, and Must-Haves tab to organize these insights. Must-Haves are the basic requirements for your product to compete (e.g., ease of use, reliability). Risks highlight challenges you’ll need to mitigate, and Differentiators help you stand out.

Step 5: Dig Into Competitor Websites and Content

Visit competitor websites to pull:

• Key value propositions and messaging
• Visual cues and branding
• Feature descriptions and calls to action
• Customer sentiment (reviews, testimonials, social media feedback)

Ask yourself:

• What language do they use?
• What perceptions are they reinforcing?
• How can your product differentiate?

Capture this language and insight in your sheet as you go.

Step 6: Prepare for Next-Level Analysis

This initial research sets the foundation for deeper analysis. In upcoming lessons, we’ll:

• Analyze competitor ads and keyword strategies
• Gather customer sentiment from reviews and forums
• Turn these insights into actionable messaging for your product

Key Takeaways

• Competitive analysis isn’t just about features—it’s about understanding customer needs, perceptions, and the cost of change.
• Organizing your insights with a structured sheet helps you identify real opportunities and risks.
• Synthesizing this data with your existing pain point research ensures your product resonates and stands out.
• This process is the bridge between research and action—giving you a clear, data-backed foundation for messaging, positioning, and product design.

In the next lessons, we’ll explore how to uncover competitors’ advertising strategies, analyze their keywords, and pull in customer sentiment to strengthen your analysis.