Competitive Analysis
Structure quarterly competitor ownership, SWOT-from-their-lens war gaming, and positioning against competitive alternatives before you commit to a build or pitch.
Overview
Competitive Analysis is an agent skill most often used in Idea (also Validate, Launch) that turns Lenny-guest competitive and positioning tactics into quarterly war-gaming and alternative-mapping workflows for solo build
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/refoundai/lenny-skills --skill competitive-analysisWhat is this skill?
- Distills 49 Lenny-guest insights with 63 competitive-analysis mentions into tactical playbooks
- Quarterly competitor-owner pods plus a Competitive War Gaming Day with team presentations
- SWOT analysis framed from the competitor’s perspective, not only your roadmap
- Positioning starts with competitive alternatives—including status quo and indirect substitutes
- B2B-oriented reminders that deals are often lost to inaction, not named rivals
- 49 guests
- 63 mentions
Adoption & trust: 2.2k installs on skills.sh; 1k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits); trending (+100% hot-view momentum).
What problem does it solve?
You know a few competitor names but not what buyers would do if your product vanished, so positioning and roadmap bets stay vague.
Who is it for?
Indie SaaS founders or small teams about to commit to a niche who want a repeatable competitor ritual instead of ad-hoc Google sweeps.
Skip if: Builders who already run a paid CI platform with live win-loss data and signed positioning docs—this skill summarizes methods, it does not scrape the market for you.
When should I use this skill?
You need competitor immersion, war gaming, or competitive-alternatives positioning guidance distilled from Lenny guest interviews.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You leave with assigned competitor deep-dives, SWOT and war-game outputs, and a positioning frame anchored on competitive alternatives you can carry into validation and GTM copy.
- Competitor assignment plan and SWOT packets per assigned rival
- War-gaming day agenda with presentation prompts and prize criteria
- Competitive-alternatives map for positioning and deal-win criteria
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Competitive analysis is where solo builders decide what they must beat in the market; the canonical shelf is Idea because that is when you map rivals and alternatives before validation spend. The competitors subphase is the right home for war-gaming rituals, SWOT immersion, and alternative-by-alternative positioning—not a one-off feature checklist.
Where it fits
Assign each cofounder a rival for the quarter and draft SWOT slides before choosing a feature wedge.
List status quo and spreadsheet workflows your ICP uses when they ignore category leaders.
Cut MVP scope to beats the top two competitive alternatives, not every feature parity table row.
Price against the DIY + consultant bundle buyers compare you to in late-stage deals.
Rewrite launch narrative to name what you beat, including do-nothing and incumbent spreadsheets.
How it compares
Use as a structured research ritual layered on top of customer discovery, not as a substitute for talking to real prospects.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is competitive-analysis for?
Solo and indie builders shipping SaaS or content products who need positioning discipline and team-scale competitor immersion without a dedicated strategy function.
When should I use competitive-analysis?
During Idea competitor mapping, Validate scope and wedge checks before prototyping, and Launch messaging passes when you rewrite homepage and sales narrative against alternatives.
Is competitive-analysis safe to install?
It is prose guidance from a public skill package; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page before installing any skill in your agent environment.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Competitive Analysis
# Competitive Analysis - All Guest Insights *49 guests, 63 mentions* --- ## Annie Pearl *Annie Pearl* > "We have assigned people into groups for the quarter to own a competitor. Their job is to essentially spend a lot of time immersing themselves into the product of the competitor, really trying to think through the lens of, do a SWAT analysis... then we have the competitive war gaming day where every team comes and presents." **Insight:** Competitive 'War Gaming' distributes market research across the team, ensuring deep immersion into competitor products. **Tactical advice:** - Assign specific competitors to small groups for a full quarter. - Conduct a SWOT analysis from the competitor's perspective. - Host a 'War Gaming Day' for teams to present findings and earn prizes. *Timestamp: 00:47:44* ## April Dunford *April Dunford* > "the first step in a good positioning exercise is to really understand, what do we have to position against? So put another way, it's like saying, what do I have to beat in order to win a deal? So in positioning work we call this competitive alternatives." **Insight:** Positioning must begin by identifying the 'competitive alternatives'—what the customer would do if your product didn't exist. **Tactical advice:** - Identify what you have to beat to win a deal - Look beyond direct competitors to 'competitive alternatives' *Timestamp: 00:21:36* --- > "Most folks will discount the status quo, but they shouldn't because in B2B we lose about 40% of our deals to quote-unquote, 'no decision,' which actually means we lost to the spreadsheet, we lost to pen and paper, we lost to interns. And if we're not positioning well against that, we're never going to get the customer to come off of that." **Insight:** The status quo (spreadsheets, manual processes) is often the most significant competitor in B2B sales. **Tactical advice:** - Position specifically against the 'status quo' (e.g., spreadsheets or manual work) - Address the 'no decision' risk by highlighting the cost of sticking with current processes *Timestamp: 00:22:10* --- > "What we should be doing is giving them a way to think about the whole market and say, in the case of Help Scout, 'Look, there's shared inbox and then there's help desk software and then there's us.' And I don't care who the vendor is, I'm going to put them in one of those buckets." **Insight:** Competitive analysis should be used to categorize the market into 'approaches' rather than just listing competitors, helping the buyer simplify their decision-making process. **Tactical advice:** - Group competitors into buckets based on their fundamental approach to the problem. - Acknowledge the strengths of other approaches for specific types of customers to build trust. - Position your product as the only one that fits the 'perfect world' criteria you've established. *Timestamp: 00:24:27* ## Ayo Omojola *Ayo Omojola* > "For a long time it was when someone says, 'Hey, why are you betting on Venmo?' I'd be like, 'Try and send me a dollar that I can use now,' and there was only one app you could do it with." **Insight:** Identify a 'cut through the clutter' differentiator that clearly separates your product from the market leader. **Tactical advice:** - Find a specific functional gap in the competitor's product (e.g., speed of money movement). - Use that gap as the primary narrative for why your product is the better choice. *Timestamp: 13:25* ## Barbra Gago *Barbra Gago* > "When we talk about category, I think it's really what would be a good way to explore your space and your relevant categories would be to go to G2 Crowd or Software Advice or any of those type of review sites or directory sites and learn about how they've categorized products based on feature sets." **Insight:** Review sites and directory platforms are primary tools for understanding how the market currently categorizes products and features. **Tactical advice:** - Analyze G2 Crowd and Sof