competitive intel has never been easier
“Competitor aware” beats being “competitor obsessed” any day. But there are some things you can do that make it very easy to learn heaps about the competition without overdoing it.
Follow founders on LinkedIn. I overshare sometimes and I am not alone in that. In fact, many founders share damn near everything. This has a name. It’s Founder Brand and it’s the fastest way to know what’s happening at your competitors.
Watch their webinars. Especially when brands bring on outside people to talk about how they work with a product. For example, one of our competitors recently brought on someone who explained how they have to use spreadsheets to do what Accoil does natively. That was validation of our product in an instant… on a competitors airwaves.
Ask them directly. This is maybe the easiest one. We live in a world of abundance. Why not talk to the people building other products in our space? Don’t give away all the secrets, but there’s more to gain from direct connections (even with competitors) than from avoiding them. It’s weird, but it works.
There are big expensive tools that hunt for product updates, news, funding, and 756 other competitor data points. You can learn a lot of what you need to know about competing products by watching the company leaders, consuming some of their content, and actually talking to them <gasp>.
Start by following their leadership on LinkedIn. Set aside some time for webinars even if the thought of watching a webinar makes you sleepy. And then say hi to someone at the competing company.
If you chose a good market, there’s room for competition. And that’s something to be grateful for because when there is no competition, there’s probably no market.
Go get’em,
Peter
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