Customers & Research

What if my customers say they have no competitors, is that good or bad?

A starting point

Almost always bad, because it usually means the job isn't painful enough to spend money or effort on. If nobody's built anything, ask what people cobble together today, the spreadsheet, the intern, the doing-nothing. 'No competitors' often means 'no market'.

Go deeper

Watch

▶️ Video
Free Beginner

How to Plan an MVP

On Y Combinator Startup Library by Michael Seibel ~15 min

Why we picked it

Michael Seibel's crisp framing of holding the problem and customer tightly while holding the solution loosely, the mindset that keeps competitor and problem research honest. Free and canonical.

  • Hold the problem and customer tightly, the solution loosely
  • Talk to a few users before building, a little research beats none
  • 'No competitors' often signals a weak problem, not a blue ocean
  • Iterating changes the solution; pivoting changes the problem
Open ycombinator.com →

Read

📖 Book
Paid Intermediate

Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford ~200 pages

Why we picked it

The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns competitive research into a market advantage.

  • Your real competition is often the status quo, not another product
  • Start positioning from the competitive alternatives your buyers consider
  • Differentiated value comes from your unique capabilities vs those alternatives
  • Choose the market frame that makes your strengths obvious
Open aprildunford.com →

People also ask

How do I research my competitors properly? Go beyond their homepage: sign up, read their reviews, their churned-customer complaints, their job posts, and their pricing page. The gold is in w... Beginner 2 resources → What tools should I use to track competitors and market landscape? Start free and manual before you pay for anything: Google Alerts and their newsletter for moves, G2/Capterra reviews for weaknesses, Crunchbase for... Intermediate 2 resources → How do I position against a bigger, better-funded competitor? Don't fight them on their strengths, reframe the category so your strengths matter most. Anchor on the competitive alternatives your best customers... Advanced 2 resources → How do I size the market and figure out if it's big enough? Build it bottom-up, not from a scary McKinsey top-down number: who exactly is the customer, how many are there, what will they pay, and how will yo... Intermediate 2 resources → How do I understand the competitive landscape for an Indian market specifically? Don't assume the US playbook maps onto India, pricing power, distribution, and willingness-to-pay are wildly different. Study who Indian customers ... Intermediate 2 resources → Who are my real competitors once I think in jobs to be done? Anything the customer currently 'hires' to get the same job done, including a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp group, a competitor, or doing nothing at all.... Intermediate 3 resources →