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Venture — is it worth building?
Brief 63

Competitor Teardown

Everyone already fighting for this money — features, pricing, positioning, and traction compared, their customers' complaints mined, and the gaps nobody covers.

COMPETITORS.md4 phases8 lenses~3.2k chars

Free & open · no signup · read-only — it ends by asking · nothing leaves your machine

What it does

You are working inside this repo — the research workspace for this venture. Mission: build the honest map of everyone competing for this budget — direct, indirect, and the status quo — then find the gaps that are open because they are hard versus open because they are worthless.

Research pass: read the web and any reports at this root; your only write is the report file. Every factual claim carries a source link and access date.

What it looks for

8 lenses it looks through

Phase 2 sweeps the codebase through every one of these, citing file and line for each finding.

1

Positioning claims

each competitor's one-line promise in their own words, clustered; the words everyone uses are free differentiation for whoever stops using them

2

Feature and pricing matrix

capabilities × tiers × prices from their own pages; note the packaging tricks and what each hides behind Contact Us

3

Their customers' complaints

mine each vendor's negative reviews: shared gripes are market truths, unique gripes are that vendor's ceiling

4

Traction proxies

review counts and velocity, hiring, marketplace presence, community size; ranked, with sources

5

The ignored segment

who every vendor's pricing, onboarding, or language excludes; is that segment poor, or merely unfashionable

6

Release pulse

changelog cadence and direction; who is sprinting, who is coasting, who is in maintenance-mode decay

7

Moat inspection

what actually protects each incumbent: data, integrations, contracts, brand, switching costs — versus mere head start

8

The kill zone

what each incumbent could most easily copy from a new entrant, and how fast

The deliverable

What lands in your repo

One structured report at the repo root — or in reports/, if you keep one — the same shape every time, ready for a teammate — or the optional Studio — to act on.

COMPETITORS.md
1
The matrix
roster with positioning, pricing, and traction
2
Complaint synthesis
market truths versus per-vendor ceilings
3
Gap analysis
gap · evidence it is real · why it is open · graveyard check
4
The wedge shortlist
the 2–3 entries a newcomer could actually win
One file. Evidence-backed. It ends by asking before touching anything. · see a real COMPETITORS.md ↗
How it works

What it makes the agent do

Every Goal Prompt follows the same four steps, so results are consistent and repeatable — no matter which one you run.

1
Phase 1

Build the roster

Enumerate the field.

2
Phase 2

Tear down through 8 lenses

Positioning claims — each competitor's one-line promise in their own words, clustered.

3
Phase 3

Curate

Name each gap and classify it.

4
Phase 4

Report

Create COMPETITORS.md at repo root.

Get started

Three ways to run this Goal Prompt

01 · COPY

Paste it in

Copy it and paste it into your agent inside the repo you want checked.

02 · INSTALL

As a slash command

Install the goal plugin once — two commands — then just type /goal:competitor-teardown.

1/plugin marketplace add GhostlyGawd/goal-prompts
2/plugin install goal@goal-prompts

Or install only this Goal Prompt as /goal-competitor-teardown:

curl -fsSL https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/install | BRIEF=63 sh
03 · AGENT

From an agent (MCP)

Let an agent fetch it mid-conversation, or pull the raw Goal Prompt by URL.

https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/raw/63.md
Transparency

The exact prompt

Nothing hidden — this is the whole Goal Prompt, verbatim. Read it in a minute, edit it, or copy it as-is.

Read the full brief (3,209 characters)
# Goal: Competitor Teardown

You are working inside this repo — the research workspace for this venture. Mission: build the honest map of everyone competing for this budget — direct, indirect, and the status quo — then find the gaps that are open because they are hard versus open because they are worthless.

Research pass: read the web and any reports at this root; your only write is the report file. Every factual claim carries a source link and access date.

## Phase 1 — Build the roster
- Enumerate the field: direct products, adjacent tools stretching in, agencies and consultants, internal builds, and doing-nothing. Scope from NICHE.md and DEMAND.md if present.
- For each, pull the primaries: homepage promise, pricing page, changelog or release cadence, review profiles, and public traction signals.

## Phase 2 — Tear down through 8 lenses
1. **Positioning claims** — each competitor's one-line promise in their own words, clustered; the words everyone uses are free differentiation for whoever stops using them
2. **Feature and pricing matrix** — capabilities × tiers × prices from their own pages; note the packaging tricks and what each hides behind Contact Us
3. **Their customers' complaints** — mine each vendor's negative reviews: shared gripes are market truths, unique gripes are that vendor's ceiling
4. **Traction proxies** — review counts and velocity, hiring, marketplace presence, community size; ranked, with sources
5. **The ignored segment** — who every vendor's pricing, onboarding, or language excludes; is that segment poor, or merely unfashionable
6. **Release pulse** — changelog cadence and direction; who is sprinting, who is coasting, who is in maintenance-mode decay
7. **Moat inspection** — what actually protects each incumbent: data, integrations, contracts, brand, switching costs — versus mere head start
8. **The kill zone** — what each incumbent could most easily copy from a new entrant, and how fast

## Phase 3 — Curate
- Name each gap and classify it: underserved (evidence of demand, weak supply) or unserved-for-a-reason.
- Pull the graveyard: prior startups that tried each gap, and what the record says killed them.

## Phase 4 — Report
Create `COMPETITORS.md` at repo root:
1. **The matrix** — roster with positioning, pricing, and traction
2. **Complaint synthesis** — market truths versus per-vendor ceilings
3. **Gap analysis** — gap · evidence it is real · why it is open · graveyard check
4. **The wedge shortlist** — the 2–3 entries a newcomer could actually win

Start the report with today's date. If `COMPETITORS.md` already exists from a previous run, read it first and lead with what changed since.

## Rules
- Their pages and their customers' words — never marketing-versus-marketing speculation
- Every gap must survive the why-is-this-open question in writing
- No discernible product or idea to research in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
- If a `reports/` directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
- Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
- Report only — end by asking which gap to build positioning around

House rules for this Goal Prompt

  • Their pages and their customers' words — never marketing-versus-marketing speculation
  • Every gap must survive the why-is-this-open question in writing
  • No discernible product or idea to research in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
  • If a reports/ directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
  • Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
  • Report only — end by asking which gap to build positioning around
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