How to research your competition?

I have read and listened(on the podcast) that you should probably ignore the competition. First is that by paying attention to their product offering you will start to first feel discouraged by the polish of their product and secondly you may feel compelled to compete on price. While you can, in theory, learn from them how to market your product I am guessing they did not do anything special. Identify your target audience and the communities they are a part of. Join those communities and learn how best to market to them. Of course, be genuine in the way you approach these communities. Most communities hate people joining purely for personal gain so make sure to give something back but also actually try to find value for yourself. Also when you do find these communities make sure to utilize them refine your product offering. Make sure that there is not only value in your product but that your target audience can easily extract value from it. A product, in theory, can be extremely useful but if in practice I can't extract value from it then it is useless. My advice find a community dedicated to people developing public-facing applications and software. Ask them for advice and feedback. Make sure to offer them advice and feedback in return. That is your target audience. Work with them. Eventually, you will learn how best to approach them.

Say something nice to Viktor_r…

2

I always monitor the usual suspects such as Alexa, SimilarWeb and AlternativeTo

For early stage ideas, I keep myself updated on PH and BetaList

felix12777

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7 years ago
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I have read and listened(on the podcast) that you should probably ignore the competition. First is that by paying attention to their product offering you will start to first feel discouraged by the polish of their product and secondly you may feel compelled to compete on price. While you can, in theory, learn from them how to market your product I am guessing they did not do anything special. Identify your target audience and the communities they are a part of. Join those communities and learn how best to market to them. Of course, be genuine in the way you approach these communities. Most communities hate people joining purely for personal gain so make sure to give something back but also actually try to find value for yourself. Also when you do find these communities make sure to utilize them refine your product offering. Make sure that there is not only value in your product but that your target audience can easily extract value from it. A product, in theory, can be extremely useful but if in practice I can't extract value from it then it is useless. My advice find a community dedicated to people developing public-facing applications and software. Ask them for advice and feedback. Make sure to offer them advice and feedback in return. That is your target audience. Work with them. Eventually, you will learn how best to approach them.

BobbyJones

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7 years ago
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One of the easiest ways to research competition is to become a customer. 😉

c0nsilience

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7 years ago
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