AI Prompt for Competitive Analysis

What it does

Takes a product or market space and produces a strategic competitive analysis, not just a competitor list. Three modes: Map (landscape only), Advise (skip the map, go straight to strategic implications), Full (both). The output names moat type AND maturity per competitor, identifies gaps and subjects each to a counter-position test (“why hasn’t anyone filled this?”), spells out two or three positioning options with their tradeoffs, and surfaces one non-obvious observation about how the market actually works.

The upgrade over a plain landscape dump: it refuses generic axes, flags training-cutoff-sensitive claims instead of asserting stale facts as current, and forces a “do NOT do this” recommendation rather than neutral both-sides analysis.

The Prompt

Map the competitive landscape and identify strategic opportunities for the following product or market.

Context (fill in what you know):
- My product or market space: [DESCRIBE — what you do or want to do, and who you serve]
- My stage: [e.g., pre-launch exploring the space / active competitor / considering a pivot]
- What I need this for: [e.g., investor pitch / product strategy / positioning decision / general awareness]

Mode:
- Map — give me the competitive landscape: who's out there, how they position, where the gaps are
- Advise — skip the map, assume I know the players. Tell me what the landscape means for MY strategy
- Full — map the landscape first, then tell me what it means for my strategy

[CHOOSE ONE MODE OR DEFAULT TO "FULL"]

For Map or Full mode:

1. PLAYERS: Identify 5-8 relevant competitors (direct and indirect). For each:
   - What they do (one sentence)
   - Who they serve (primary audience)
   - Business model (how they make money)
   - Key strength (what they do better than anyone)
   - Moat type (network effects / switching costs / data advantage / brand / regulatory / scale / none yet) — one line
   - Moat maturity (nascent / building / entrenched) — how compounded the moat actually is, because an entrenched network-effects moat and a six-month-old barely-compounding one are different strategic problems
   - Acquisition motion (enterprise sales / self-serve / PLG / partners / founder-led / community) — because moat tells you whether they can hold customers, GTM tells you whether you can reach and afford to take them

2. POSITIONING MAP: Place all players (including mine if applicable) on two axes:
   - X-axis: [propose the most revealing spectrum for this market]
   - Y-axis: [propose a second spectrum that exposes a real strategic tension]
   - Explain why these axes matter — not just what they are, but what they reveal about how the market is structured

3. PATTERNS: What conventional wisdom does everyone in this market follow? What assumptions do all players share — even if they compete fiercely on everything else?

4. GAPS: Where is the map empty? For each gap:
   - Describe the unserved need specifically: "No one does X for Y audience at Z price point"
   - Counter-position test: Why hasn't anyone filled this gap? Is it a real opportunity, or is the gap empty for a reason (no demand, unit economics don't work, regulatory barrier, requires a capability no one has)?

5. THREAT ASSESSMENT: Which competitor is most likely to move into my space and why? What early signals would indicate they're doing it?

For Advise or Full mode:

6. SO WHAT — Strategic Implications:
   - Given this landscape, what are the 2-3 positioning options available to me? For each: what it requires, what it sacrifices, and who it puts me in direct competition with
   - Which positioning has the widest moat potential — and is it buildable from where I am now?
   - What is the one thing I should NOT do, based on where the market is heading?
   - Timing: Is the window for entry/repositioning opening, closing, or stable? What would change that?

7. STRATEGIC INSTINCT: One observation about how this specific market works that isn't obvious from the individual competitor profiles — the kind of structural insight that emerges from looking at the landscape as a whole. Frame it as: "In this market, [non-obvious pattern]. This means [implication for strategy]."

Anti-instructions:
- Do NOT treat all competitors as equally important. Rank by relevance to my situation. If a player is a distant indirect competitor, say so — don't give them equal weight to a direct rival
- Do NOT describe gaps as opportunities without testing them. Every "gap" needs the counter-position test: why is it empty? Optimistic gap analysis is worse than no gap analysis
- Do NOT hedge strategic recommendations. "It depends on your goals" is not advice. Given the landscape, take a position on what makes the most sense. If you genuinely need more information to advise, say specifically what you need
- Do NOT copy competitor descriptions from marketing materials. Describe what they actually do and how they actually compete, not how they describe themselves
- Do NOT list competitors alphabetically or randomly. Order by strategic relevance: closest threats first, distant alternatives last
- Do NOT assert specific company facts (current pricing, headcount, recent product moves, funding, ownership, acquisitions) as current without flagging them as potentially stale. When a claim depends on post-training-cutoff reality, say "verify this" inline. Competitive analysis is the single use case most vulnerable to training-cutoff errors — be explicit about what you are confident is stable vs. what needs live research
- Do NOT default to generic axes for the positioning map (quality vs price, scale vs specialization, incumbent vs upstart, simple vs complex, consumer vs enterprise). Axes must expose a tension specific to THIS market. If you cannot find two such axes, propose three candidate pairs and let me pick rather than forcing a generic frame. Axis choice determines everything downstream
- If my market description is too vague to identify specific competitors, tell me what you need to narrow it down. Do not fabricate a plausible-sounding landscape

Usage Notes

• The positioning map axes are the most important analytical choice in the entire output. Good axes reveal market structure. If the prompt still suggests generic axes (see anti-instruction), push back by asking: “What axes would a market insider use that an outsider would miss?”
• The counter-position test on gaps is the core skeptical frame. Most gap analysis produces false positives — empty spaces on a map that are empty for good reasons. The best competitive insight isn’t “here’s an opening” but “here’s an opening AND here’s why it’s been overlooked rather than deliberately avoided.”
• The SO WHAT section is where the analysis earns its keep. A competitive map without strategic implications is a research exercise; the implications are what you’d pay a strategy consultant for.
• Training-cutoff discipline: the prompt forces the model to flag stale-prone claims, but for fast-moving markets you should still validate specific facts (current pricing, recent funding, product launches) with live sources. Use this prompt to build the analytical framework; the framework (axes, moat types, gap logic, counter-position) holds even when specific details are outdated.
• For deeper analysis of a specific competitor, follow up with: “Deep-dive on [competitor]. What would I need to build to win their customers? What would make their customers never switch?”
• The Strategic Instinct line is designed to be portable — the kind of observation you’d repeat to a colleague who wasn’t in the analysis session.