By Hiten Shah · medium.com · @hnshah on X · LinkedIn
The article argues that the old advice to ignore competitors no longer holds, since new SaaS competitors appear constantly and may encroach from adjacent markets. Competitor research, done properly, is a way to learn about customers, whose expectations shift over time. The author describes four competitor types (direct, indirect, alternative solutions, and multi-tool stacks) and what each reveals about customers. Survey data shows many companies do shallow research, relying on Googling, while few talk to customers. The piece recommends combining several methods, especially customer interviews and switching-focused interviews, and illustrates them with the author's experience building a document-search product.
01Key takeaways
- Treat competitors as a lens on customer needs rather than something to ignore.
- Study direct, indirect, manual, and multi-tool alternatives to see the full competitive landscape.
- Prioritize customer interviews and surveys, the most valuable competitor-research method.
- Mine competitor websites and review sites systematically, categorizing language and trends over time.
- Use switching interviews to build timelines showing why customers leave one product for another.
- Build a simple MVP to test whether a competitor's approach actually solves the customer's problem.
02Key sections
- Why the 'ignore competitors' advice is outdated
- Earlier, fewer SaaS tools and less competition made focusing solely on customers reasonable. Today, well-funded and adjacent-market competitors appear constantly, so ignoring them risks being overtaken.
- Four types of competitors to study
- Direct competitors, indirect competitors, manual alternatives, and multi-tool stacks each reveal different customer behaviors. Studying all four gives a fuller picture than watching only obvious rivals.
- What competitor research reveals about customers
- Research can expose which alternatives customers use, which segments competitors target, which features matter, and how customers feel about each option.
- Research methods and their limits
- Most companies rely on Googling and quick product glances, which yield little. Interviews and surveys are the most valuable method, followed by website analysis, review mining, and switching interviews.
- Building an MVP to test competitor assumptions
- A quickly built prototype let the team test whether search was the right solution and surfaced retention and popularity insights, avoiding costly mistakes.
03From the post
“This post is written by Marie Prokopets, co-founder of Product Habits and FYI, and features slides presented by her co-founder Hiten Shah at the 2019 Appealie SaaS Conference. I’ve been… Keep reading The post Why you shouldn’t ignore your competitors appeared first on Product Habits.”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.