how do you actually analyze competitors when starting something?

not just finding them - that part is easy.

i mean understanding things like:

• what they really do

• how they position themselves

• what they’re strong or weak at

• where the gaps in the market actually are

every time i try to do this, it turns into hours of:
open tabs, messy notes, screenshots, random docs.

so i’m curious - how do you personally approach competitor research?

do you:
• manually analyze 4-5 companies deeply
• just skim their websites and messaging
• use tools/frameworks
• or mostly rely on intuition over time?

asking because my team and i have been building something to structure this process (called competitor snap - https://www.competitorsnap.com/), but we’re still trying to understand how people actually do this as off today.

would love to hear how others approach it.