By name: research-competitive-landscape-and-positioning description: Use when a product manager wants deep competitive research for a product, feature, SaaS category, market segment, or business idea using online sources. Identifies the exact segment, competitors, alternatives, positioning, pricing, packaging, capabilities, market gaps, differentiation, and what the user's product may be missing. Ask clarification only when the segment or buyer is too ambiguous to research responsibly.
Research a Competitive Landscape and Product Positioning
Goal
Produce a decision-grade competitive analysis from a short product description, business idea, feature concept, or market question. The output should help the PM understand the exact segment, the clearest competitors, how they position and package themselves, what customers expect, and where the user's product may be differentiated or exposed.
When to ask clarification
Ask up to three short questions only when the answer would materially change the competitor set:
- Target customer: startup, mid-market, enterprise, consumer, regulated industry, geography.
- Primary workflow: what process or job the product supports.
- Business model or product shape: SaaS, marketplace, internal tool, API, service, AI agent, vertical product.
- Current hypothesis: who the user believes the closest competitors are, if any.
- Strategic question: enter market, reposition, build feature, price, defend, partner, or stop.
If the prompt gives enough to start, proceed and state assumptions.
Senior PM standard
Do not stop at a competitor list. Produce a market-structure view that can change strategy, positioning, roadmap, pricing, or sales narrative.
Look for:
- Category ambiguity: whether the user's description maps to multiple markets with different buyers and competitors.
- Buying-center reality: buyer, evaluator, daily user, procurement, security, finance, and implementation owner.
- Table stakes vs. differentiators: what customers expect before they will even evaluate the product.
- Segment wedges: narrow segments where incumbents are weak, overbuilt, too expensive, too horizontal, or slow to implement.
- Competitive traps: claims that sound differentiated but are already commodity, bundled, or easily copied.
- Proof burden: evidence the user needs before claiming ROI, automation, accuracy, compliance, speed, or AI advantage.
- Build/buy/partner implications: areas where integration or ecosystem positioning may matter more than feature parity.
Research workflow
- Convert the user's description into a candidate category and sub-segment.
- Search online for current sources. Use company websites, pricing pages, docs, product pages, reviews, analyst lists, market maps, app marketplaces, public filings, trusted industry sources, and recent articles.
- Identify competitors in tiers:
- Direct competitors: same buyer, same job, similar product.
- Adjacent competitors: solve part of the job or serve a nearby segment.
- Substitute alternatives: spreadsheets, ERP modules, consultants, internal tools, manual workflows, incumbent platforms.
- Build the comparison around buyer-relevant dimensions, not generic feature lists.
- Look for pricing and packaging signals: plans, seats, usage, implementation fees, enterprise gating, free trial, procurement fit.
- Look for positioning signals: headline, ICP, core promise, proof, integrations, compliance, AI claims, vertical focus, and urgency trigger.
- Identify what the user's product may be missing, doing differently, or able to avoid.
- Pressure-test whether the product should compete head-on, wedge into a narrower segment, integrate with incumbents, or avoid the segment.
- Cite sources with dates or access dates where possible.
Analysis lenses
Use the relevant lenses:
- Segment definition and category boundaries.
- ICP, buyer, user, and economic decision-maker.
- Core workflow and job-to-be-done.
- Competitor maturity and credibility.
- Feature expectations and table stakes.
- Differentiation and defensibility.
- Pricing and packaging.
- Integration ecosystem and platform dependencies.
- Compliance, trust, security, and data requirements.
- Distribution motion and sales cycle.
- Market gaps, under-served segments, and over-served segments.
Output format
Segment Definition
State the category, sub-segment, buyer, user, and assumptions.
Clarifying Assumptions
List the assumptions made because the user did not provide enough detail. Mark which assumptions would materially change the competitor set.
Competitive Set
Use a table:
| Competitor | Type | Target customer | Core promise | Pricing or packaging signal | Why it matters |
|---|
Positioning Map
Explain the main axes that matter in this segment, such as:
- Horizontal vs. vertical.
- Automation vs. workflow system of record.
- SMB vs. enterprise.
- AI-native vs. traditional software.
- Standalone product vs. suite module.
What You May Be Missing
List table stakes, trust requirements, integrations, workflow depth, data needs, procurement needs, and adoption blockers.
Strategic Implications
State what this means for positioning, roadmap, pricing, sales motion, and market entry. Include the strongest "do not compete this way" warning if one exists.
Differentiation Opportunities
List credible ways to be different. Separate strong opportunities from weak or easily copied claims.
Recommended Next Research
List the fastest follow-up research, demos, customer interviews, pricing checks, or competitor teardown tasks.
Sources
List the sources used. For each source, include the source name, URL, and date or access date when possible.
Quality bar
- Use web research for current competitor claims and pricing unless the user explicitly says not to.
- Do not rely only on competitor homepages if better evidence exists.
- Do not overstate market size or competitor performance without strong sources.
- Separate direct competitors from substitutes.
- Be direct when the user's segment is crowded, unclear, or weakly differentiated.
- Avoid generic SWOT. Prioritize non-obvious implications and decisions.