competitor-teardown

Imported from halt-catch-fire/mutiny (guides/product/competitor-teardown/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add halt-catch-fire/mutiny --skill competitor-teardown. Copyright stays with the author.

Install the belt CLI skill: npx skills add belt-sh/cli

Competitor Teardown

Structured competitive analysis with research and screenshots via inference.sh CLI.

Quick Start

Requires inference.sh CLI (belt). Install instructions

belt login

# Research competitor landscape
belt app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
  "query": "top project management tools comparison 2024 market share"
}'

# Screenshot competitor's website
belt app run infsh/agent-browser --input '{
  "url": "https://competitor.com",
  "action": "screenshot"
}'

Teardown Framework

The 7-Layer Analysis

Research Commands

Company Overview

# General intelligence
belt app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX company overview funding team size 2024"
}'

# Funding and financials
belt app run exa/search --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX funding round series valuation investors"
}'

# Recent news
belt app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX latest news announcements 2024"
}'

Product Analysis

# Feature comparison
belt app run exa/search --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX vs alternatives feature comparison review"
}'

# Pricing details
belt app run tavily/extract --input '{
  "urls": ["https://competitor.com/pricing"]
}'

# User reviews
belt app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX reviews G2 Capterra pros cons 2024"
}'

UX Screenshots

# Homepage
belt app run infsh/agent-browser --input '{
  "url": "https://competitor.com",
  "action": "screenshot"
}'

# Pricing page
belt app run infsh/agent-browser --input '{
  "url": "https://competitor.com/pricing",
  "action": "screenshot"
}'

# Signup flow
belt app run infsh/agent-browser --input '{
  "url": "https://competitor.com/signup",
  "action": "screenshot"
}'

Feature Matrix

Structure

| Feature | Your Product | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|---------|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| Real-time collaboration | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| API access | ✅ | Paid only | ✅ | ❌ |
| SSO/SAML | ✅ | Enterprise | ✅ | Enterprise |
| Custom reports | ✅ | Limited | ✅ | ❌ |
| Mobile app | ✅ | iOS only | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free tier | ✅ (unlimited) | ✅ (3 users) | ❌ | ✅ (1 project) |
| Integrations | 50+ | 100+ | 30+ | 20+ |

Rules

• ✅ = Full support
• ⚠️ or "Partial" = Limited or conditional
• ❌ = Not available
• Note conditions: "Paid only", "Enterprise tier", "Beta"
• Lead with features where YOU win
• Be honest about competitor strengths — credibility matters

Pricing Comparison

Structure

| | Your Product | Competitor A | Competitor B |
|---------|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| **Free tier** | Yes, 5 users | Yes, 3 users | No |
| **Starter** | $10/user/mo | $15/user/mo | $12/user/mo |
| **Pro** | $25/user/mo | $30/user/mo | $29/user/mo |
| **Enterprise** | Custom | Custom | $50/user/mo |
| **Billing** | Monthly/Annual | Annual only | Monthly/Annual |
| **Annual discount** | 20% | 15% | 25% |
| **Min seats** | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| **Hidden costs** | None | Setup fee $500 | API calls metered |

What to Look For

• Minimum seat requirements
• Annual-only billing (reduces flexibility)
• Feature gating between tiers
• Overage charges
• Setup/onboarding fees
• Contract lock-in periods

SWOT Analysis

Create a SWOT for each competitor:

### Competitor A — SWOT

| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|-----------|------------|
| • Strong brand recognition | • Slow feature development |
| • Large integration ecosystem | • Complex onboarding (30+ min) |
| • Enterprise sales team | • No free tier |

| Opportunities | Threats |
|--------------|---------|
| • AI features not yet shipped | • New AI-native competitors |
| • Expanding into mid-market | • Customer complaints about pricing |
| • International markets untapped | • Key engineer departures (LinkedIn) |

Positioning Map

A 2x2 matrix showing where competitors sit on two meaningful dimensions.

Choose Meaningful Axes

Template

                    Enterprise
                        │
           Competitor C │  Competitor A
                ●       │       ●
                        │
  Simple ──────────────────────────── Complex
                        │
            You ●       │  Competitor B
                        │       ●
                        │
                      SMB

Generating the Visual

# Create positioning map with Python
belt app run infsh/python-executor --input '{
  "code": "import matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport matplotlib\nmatplotlib.use(\"Agg\")\n\nfig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 10))\n\n# Competitors\ncompetitors = {\n    \"You\": (-0.3, -0.3),\n    \"Competitor A\": (0.5, 0.6),\n    \"Competitor B\": (0.6, -0.4),\n    \"Competitor C\": (-0.4, 0.5)\n}\n\nfor name, (x, y) in competitors.items():\n    color = \"#22c55e\" if name == \"You\" else \"#6366f1\"\n    size = 200 if name == \"You\" else 150\n    ax.scatter(x, y, s=size, c=color, zorder=5)\n    ax.annotate(name, (x, y), textcoords=\"offset points\", xytext=(10, 10), fontsize=12, fontweight=\"bold\")\n\nax.axhline(y=0, color=\"grey\", linewidth=0.5)\nax.axvline(x=0, color=\"grey\", linewidth=0.5)\nax.set_xlim(-1, 1)\nax.set_ylim(-1, 1)\nax.set_xlabel(\"Simple ← → Complex\", fontsize=14)\nax.set_ylabel(\"SMB ← → Enterprise\", fontsize=14)\nax.set_title(\"Competitive Positioning Map\", fontsize=16, fontweight=\"bold\")\nax.grid(True, alpha=0.3)\nplt.tight_layout()\nplt.savefig(\"positioning-map.png\", dpi=150)\nprint(\"Saved\")"
}'

Review Mining

Where to Find Reviews

What to Extract

# Mine G2 reviews
belt app run tavily/search-assistant --input '{
  "query": "CompetitorX G2 reviews complaints issues 2024"
}'

# Reddit sentiment
belt app run exa/search --input '{
  "query": "reddit CompetitorX alternative frustration switching"
}'

Deliverable Formats

Executive Summary (1 page)

## Competitive Landscape Summary

**Market:** [Category] — $[X]B market growing [Y]% annually

**Key competitors:** A (leader), B (challenger), C (niche)

**Our positioning:** [Where you sit and why it matters]

**Key insight:** [One sentence about the biggest opportunity]

| Metric | You | A | B | C |
|--------|-----|---|---|---|
| Users | X | Y | Z | W |
| Pricing (starter) | $X | $Y | $Z | $W |
| Rating (G2) | X.X | Y.Y | Z.Z | W.W |

Detailed Report (per competitor)

1. Company overview (size, funding, team)
2. Product analysis (features, UX screenshots)
3. Pricing breakdown
4. SWOT analysis
5. Review analysis (top praised, top complained)
6. Positioning vs. you
7. Opportunity summary

Comparison Grid Visual

# Stitch competitor screenshots into comparison
belt app run infsh/stitch-images --input '{
  "images": ["your-homepage.png", "competitorA-homepage.png", "competitorB-homepage.png"],
  "direction": "horizontal"
}'

Common Mistakes

Related Skills

npx skills add inference-sh/skills@web-search
npx skills add inference-sh/skills@prompt-engineering

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