The first step is to decide if a company and their products truly represent a true competitive threat. * Competitor - this product can substitute your product and these come in a few flavors * Direct: sells a similar solution to the same customer * Indirect: sells a different solution, maybe upstream or downstream in the value chain, that can perform some of your value propositions. * Disintermediator: bypasses you with a solution that cuts out your product entirely. * Complement - this product is often purchased and used together with your product. Think of it as a additive product. * Customer -- sometimes the company is actually a possible customer and you're thinking about them in the wrong ways. Once classified, I like to track competition in 3 ways: - Market landscape - Company fundamentals - Product teardowns # Market landscape [https://sean.horgan.net/d/_d3H4GIs7zuo/_suMk6PWH#_luIC90E2](https://sean.horgan.net/d/_d3H4GIs7zuo/_suMk6PWH#_luIC90E2) # Company fundamentals I like to maintain a list of competitors and place them into tiers that roughly align with the threat they pose to our business, which drives how often I’ll look for news or updates on their products. I don’t want to overdo with competitor research but it’s important to know your customer’s options. Here’s a template I’ve started with to help track it all: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SUoBU0j4EdmnzRFwkFCOTmNw6XjRRP52eesd2iTPMF4/edit?gid=0#gid=0 Given the number of zombie organizations and products out there, I’ve found it very useful to track financial & org information to understand the truth health of that competitor. For example, I like to see the employee growth over the last 12 months which you can grab from LinkedIn insights. # Product teardowns I like to keep a folder of slide decks that walk through my tier 1, maybe tier 2 competitors. Each deck should cover the following - TLDR - 1 slide - SWOT - How should we compete against them? - Product concepts - What product concepts are surfaced in the product UI? - How are product concepts organized, e.g. information architecture? - Who is the UI optimized for? - Screenshots of key user journeys, e.g. onboarding, value prop journeys, billing. #pm-practice #competition