pm-competitive-analysis

• SKILL.mdcore · 13,019 bytes

# Competitive Analysis Skill

## How this skill behaves (read first)

This is a **generative** skill, and "do a competitive analysis" is where an AI assistant produces the most confident, least useful output: a flat feature-comparison table of the few obvious direct competitors, with invented specifics, no market context, no gaps identified, and no "so what." Two failure modes compound it — **fabricated competitor facts** (made-up features, pricing, or market share that read as authoritative) and **no strategic conclusion** (a report that lists but never decides). A real competitive analysis is **scoped to a decision, grounded in honest public evidence, structured by the right framework, and ends in implications and a positioning choice**. So this skill gates:

1. **Establish the research objective and the industry context** — what decision this informs, and the market it sits in, so competitor moves are read in context rather than in a vacuum.
2. **Apply the always-true core** — find all three competitor types, profile from real public sources, use the right framework, prioritize, and translate into strategic implications and a position.
3. **Surface the context-dependent decisions** (which framework, primary vs. secondary research, competitor depth, positioning stance, expansion, AI's role) with trade-offs.

Then it **hands off to `pm-assumption-rigor-audit`** (are the competitor facts, market-size estimates, and "gap exists" claims evidenced or assumed/hallucinated?) and **`pm-prioritization-rigor-audit`** (when it ranks opportunities or competitor tiers).

Scope: this skill owns the **competitive/market analysis and the positioning conclusion that follows from it**. It defers full **product strategy** to `pm-vision-strategy`, **pricing strategy** to `ux-pricing`, **go-to-market / market-entry timing** to `pm-gtm-plan`, the broader **research process and ethics** to `pm-discovery`, and **problem framing** to `pm-problem-statement`.