How to do competitor research
Looking into what your competitors are doing is important. Not only to see if there is a market but also to know how you can be different from them and to actually see what work and what doesn’t.
And there are always competitors! It is not possible that there is no one out there that solved the problem that you are solving. They might solve them in a different way but there is always already a solution or work around to the problem that you will solve as well.
Look into direct competitors – companies that do exactly what you are doing and indirect competitors – alternative solutions to the problem.
Instead of writing up lots of long paragraphs of your competitors, I suggest you are creating a competitor grid. This way you have all of the details you need in one page. It will then be also easier to understand how you can differentiate yourself.
In the grid, write all the names of the competitors into each column and the comparison criteria into the rows. The criteria that you want to compare might be different from industry to industry. I have created a competitor grid example for you the you can download below in the additional resource area that contains example criteria. Please note that this is not a complete overview but should help to get you started.
Additional resources