Transcript

0:09 If you are starting a new project be that a product, a feature, a design, or a business, one of the first things you'll likely do is look at what everyone else in this space has done before. You'll be doing competitor research.

0:36 Competitor research broadly means looking at what someone else has done to find inspiration for your own idea. It helps to get the lay of the land, to understand what competitors find to be valuable issues to work on, and to think about the problem you're trying to solve from different angles. Ultimately, you want to provide value while being innovative and stand out. It sounds deceptively simple, but there are a few things you might want to keep in mind. I'm Thomas Essl, and this is Product Nuggets.

1:32 Start with a plan. Without structure, competitor research can be a dangerous procrastination task. It can stretch for pretty much as long as you want, not necessarily delivering value at all. So consider setting yourself a time limit. Don't spend too much time on it and if you find yourself spending hours or even days looking at other people's work. Just think about what you could have achieved for your own project in that time. To avoid this trap, start with a plan. Try to be a scientist and write a list of hypotheses and questions you want to find answers to. Without this, you're not doing research, you're just looking at stuff. Then think about where to look.

2:28 Be an investigator. Think outside what your competitors put out, don't just read the websites of your competitors. This is helpful for getting to know their features, but that's about it. If you only look at what others are doing in the same space as you to copy them, the best result you can hope for is just to be as good as them. But if you want to innovate and differentiate your product, you have to look elsewhere. However, it can be good to do this for a little, even just as a means of external affirmation. Knowing that others operate in the space that you are thinking about entering can kind of act as validation that there is something there is value to be had in this area. Just don't dwell on it.

3:28 Another thing I would add is just because there are other products that might be doing similar things as you are trying to do doesn't mean they're doing well, they may have produced this thing you're looking at, and it's not actually that great. It's not selling, it's about to be killed. It doesn't have a growth model users hate it. Any number of things could be wrong with it. So just because something exists doesn't mean it should. That's why it can be good to try to find out how well this product is actually doing. Looking for hints, how recently has their website been updated, for example? What sort of features have they released and when? Maybe they've had a pivot in the past because they've explored avenues that didn't work for them, and then had to change direction. Look at rankings of different products look at their ratings on Glassdoor to see how employees are feeling about that company. Just really try to play Sherlock Holmes and try to look for information below the surface that can give away important hints. This doesn't need to take a lot of time. It's often just about knowing what to look for.

5:13 My next piece of advice is do comparator research. What I mean with that is imagine you are developing an app to book flights, then sure you're going to be looking at all the flight booking engines out there. But there's probably a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from analogous processes in other industries. And the closest ones would be looking at hotel bookings, or maybe at booking gym classes. Thinking about what kind of pain points of rise from that might also apply for the domain that you're operating in. So try and look at other industries, analogous processes, and see if there is some ideas that you can transfer into your domain. That's actually very often how innovation is generated in the first place.

6:18 Now, this is a very subjective topic, but I would say don't try to be an industry spy. So I mean, lying to the companies you're investigating or interested in, and pretending to be, say, a potential client to make them give away trade secrets. Not only is that morally very questionable, but it's also often a waste of time and - if you have to buy something from them in the process - money. You might learn about how they implemented certain usability tricks, but it will likely not reveal how you can differentiate yourself. Again, you'll just bias yourself towards creating something that's really similar to your competitors, but it's not going to help you stand out. So steer clear from that.

7:19 Talking to people is really valuable. Go to a meetup, call up potential customers and subject matter experts. Has anyone written about the topic you're researching? And if so, email them. It always feels easy and safe to browse the internet from your desk, but often a ten-minute conversation can save you hours of work. So think about who would really know about this stuff and try to get a conversation with these people. You'll be surprised how often this works and people actually willing to share their time.

8:02 Listen to users. Since you know I'm a designer, you won't be surprised by this one. But think about it: Just because you haven't actually built anything for them yet doesn't mean they don't exist. So try to get information about who they might be. Find out where their community lives and dig there for details. This might be local community center, or it might be Reddit. But users are very vocal crowd. So they'll share what they think about your competitors. And you can read it in reviews, in tweets, in forums, anywhere you can think of. You'll find much more gold here than by looking at your competitors' website. And you might just learn where to find your future users in the process.

8:58 Product Nuggets is produced by me Thomas Essl. The theme song for this episode was Aeronaut by Blue Dots Sessions. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate it on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps me keep going. You can also share your feedback with me via Twitter @Thomas_Essl, or email me to hello@thomasessl.com.

9:22 As always, any opinions expressed in this episode are my own only, and do not necessarily reflect those of any current or previous employers, nor do they relate to any particular piece of work I've been involved in. Thank you for listening. Till next time!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai