--- name: competitive-analysis description: "Playbook for competitive teardowns, market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM), and positioning-gap analysis. Used by market-analyst." --- ## Codex host binding - Treat references to Claude slash workflows as the equivalently named Codex skill. - Before delegating to any specialist, read the `great-pm-runtime` skill and the selected packaged role file. - Treat "invoke", "assign", "delegate", "spawn", and source Agent-tool instructions as a required Codex `spawn_agent` call with that role and a bounded assignment. - For the spawn tool's `task_name` or `agent_name` identifier, replace canonical role-name hyphens with underscores (`query-refiner-pm` → `query_refiner_pm`). Keep canonical names unchanged in prompts, filenames, verdict logs, and user-facing output; this is an internal identifier mapping, not a role rename. - Store every returned agent identifier. Never call a wait tool until a spawn has returned an identifier, and wait only on identifiers returned by successful spawns. - If `spawn_agent` is unavailable or a spawn fails, report BLOCKED; do not impersonate the specialist or wait on an empty agent set. - Resolve bundled paths from the installed GreatPM plugin root. - Ignore Claude-only model aliases, colors, turn limits, and tool allowlists. - Preserve GreatPM human gates, governance, state, and reporting contracts. # Competitive Analysis — playbook The job is sourced facts, not wishful sizing. Every number traces to a source; every assumption is shown. ## 1. Competitor teardown For each competitor capture: - **What they do** — the core product, in one honest sentence. - **Positioning** — who they say they are for, and the wedge they lead with. - **Strengths** — what they genuinely do well. - **Weaknesses** — where users complain or the product is thin. - **Recent moves** — launches, pricing changes, pivots in the last 6-12 months. Include indirect competitors and the "do nothing / spreadsheet" alternative — they hold real market share. ### Where to source competitors (the 5-source checklist) Don't list the three rivals you already know. Triangulate from sources that surface the ones you *don't*: 1. **G2 / Capterra / Product Hunt** — review sites cluster alternatives users actually compared. The "compare to" sidebar is a free competitor list. 2. **Reddit / forums / app-store reviews** — search "[problem] app" and "alternative to [leader]". Indian fintech: r/IndiaInvestments, r/personalfinanceindia. Read the 1- and 2-star reviews — that's where weaknesses are documented for free. 3. **Public filings / funding news** — Crunchbase, Tracxn (strong on India), press releases. Reveals who's funded to come after the same market. 4. **Hiring posts** — a competitor's job ads leak roadmap ("hiring for UPI AutoPay integration"). LinkedIn + their careers page. 5. **Sales-call / churn transcripts** — when prospects say "we're also looking at X" or churned users say "we left for Y", that's the real competitive set, not the one in your head. If you can name only the obvious incumbents, you haven't sourced — you've recalled. ## 2. Market sizing — TAM / SAM / SOM - **TAM** (Total Addressable Market) — everyone who has the problem. - **SAM** (Serviceable Available Market) — the slice this product can serve (geography, segment, channel). - **SOM** (Serviceable Obtainable Market) — the slice realistically winnable in a defined period. Two methods — use both and compare: - **Top-down** — start from an industry figure, narrow by segment. - **Bottom-up** — number of target users x price x adoption rate. A sized number is meaningless without its method and assumptions. Always show: the source, the formula, and every assumption. If the data does not support a reliable estimate, say "cannot size reliably — here is why." ## 3. Positioning-gap analysis Map competitors on the 2-3 dimensions that matter to users (not vanity axes). Look for: - Quadrants no competitor occupies. - User segments everyone underserves. - Jobs (from JTBD) no product does well. A gap is only real if users actually want that position — an empty quadrant nobody wants is not an opportunity. ## 4. Honesty rules - Every competitor claim and every market number cites a real, checkable source. - Distinguish fact (from a source) from inference (your reasoning) explicitly. - Recency matters — flag any source older than ~12 months. - "We could not verify this" beats a confident guess. ## 5. Output shape A competitive brief: teardown table, the TAM/SAM/SOM with methods shown, the positioning-gap map, and the 2-3 gaps most worth great-pm's attention. ## Worked example — Acme.ai market sizing (Indian consumer fintech) **Goal.** Size the market for an AI-categorizing personal-expense app for Indian consumers, ahead of a July 1 alpha. **TAM (top-down).** Smartphone users in India who track money digitally. ~750M smartphone users (TRAI, 2025) × ~25% who actively manage personal finances digitally (industry surveys) = **~190M people**. Source: TRAI subscriber data + RedSeer fintech-adoption reports. Assumption shown: "actively manage" ≈ uses any finance/UPI-tracking app monthly. **SAM.** The slice Acme can plausibly serve: English-or-Hindi-comfortable, smartphone-first, with ≥1 bank account and recurring UPI usage, in metro + tier-1 cities. ~190M × ~30% (metro/tier-1 share of the digitally-active base) = **~57M people**. **SOM (bottom-up — the honest cross-check).** What's realistically winnable in 18 months. Realistic reach via organic + WhatsApp + modest paid: ~500K app installs → ~15% activate (complete first import) → ~8% convert to ₹149/mo Pro. 500,000 × 0.15 × 0.08 = **~6,000 paying users → ~₹1.07 Cr ARR**. **The gap, shown honestly.** Top-down SAM (57M) and bottom-up SOM (6K paying) differ by four orders of magnitude — and that's the *point*. The top-down number is the prize; the bottom-up number is what the go-to-market can actually touch in the planning window. Reporting only the 57M (or, worse, the 190M TAM) as "our market" would be TAM-gaming. The decision-useful number is the SOM and the conversion assumptions inside it — every one of which is a falsifiable bet for the alpha to test. **Positioning gap.** Map rivals on (a) automation depth — manual entry → rules → true AI categorization, and (b) India-native rails — generic finance app → deep UPI/SMS-parse/bank-statement-import. Walnut/Money View sit mid-automation, India-native. Mint-style apps sit higher-automation but US-centric and now sunset. The empty quadrant Acme targets: **high-automation AND India-native** — *if* users actually want auto-categorization (the bet to validate), not just cheaper manual tracking. ## When NOT to use this skill - **You haven't talked to a single user yet.** Competitive analysis tells you the *supply* side; it can't tell you whether the problem is real. Do `user-research` / `jobs-to-be-done` first — a beautiful teardown of a market nobody wants is wasted. - **For a sales objection in the moment.** A live deal needs a `competitive-battlecard` (sales-ready, one competitor, fast), not a full market study. - **When the answer won't change a decision.** If you'll build the same thing regardless of what rivals do, sizing the market is procrastination. Spend the time shipping. - **Quarterly macro re-sizing for a stable B2B niche.** If TAM moves by single-digit percent a year, re-sizing every quarter is busywork — revisit annually or on a real market shock. ## Pitfalls / failure modes 1. **"We have no competitors."** The single most dangerous line in a competitive brief. It almost always means one of: (a) you've defined the category so narrowly that you've defined the market out of existence, or (b) there is no demand and that's *why* nobody's there. The honest reframe: the alternative to your product is never "nothing" — it's a spreadsheet, a notes app, a bank's own app, or simply not tracking. Name that incumbent. **No competitors usually means no market, not a clear runway.** 2. **TAM-gaming.** Picking the biggest defensible number ("everyone with a smartphone") to impress a deck. The fix: always report TAM/SAM/SOM together and lead decisions with the SOM. A TAM with no SOM is a vanity figure. 3. **Top-down only (no bottom-up cross-check).** A single-method size is unfalsifiable. The two methods must be shown side by side; when they disagree by orders of magnitude, the *disagreement* is the finding. 4. **Vanity-axis positioning maps.** Plotting rivals on axes you win on by construction ("AI-powered" vs "legacy") instead of axes users decide on. A gap on an axis nobody buys on is not an opportunity — it's an empty quadrant nobody wants. 5. **Stale facts presented as current.** A competitor's pricing or feature from 14 months ago, cited as today's reality. Date-stamp every claim; flag anything older than ~12 months (especially in fast-moving fintech). 6. **Confusing "they're weak here" (your inference) with "users complain here" (sourced fact).** Mark which competitor weaknesses come from real reviews/ transcripts vs your own reasoning. Inferred weaknesses are hypotheses, not ammunition. ## Relationship to other great-pm skills - **`porters-five-forces`** — when you need *structural* market depth (supplier power, switching costs, threat of new entrants) beyond a competitor teardown, delegate to Porter's. This skill is the operational playbook; Porter's is the structural lens. - **`competitive-battlecard`** — the downstream, sales-ready output. This brief is the upstream source of facts the battlecard distills into win/loss talking points. Keep the battlecard's claims traceable to this brief. - **`value-proposition-canvas`** — the positioning gaps you find here feed the differentiation work; the canvas turns "the empty quadrant" into a concrete value proposition for that segment. - **`jobs-to-be-done`** — a positioning gap is only real if it maps to a job users are trying to get done; use JTBD to test that the empty quadrant is wanted.