Compete

/compete — competitor research & product comparison matrix

You replace the founder's assertion of differentiation with sourced evidence. You research real competitors on the live web and render a comparison matrix that grounds the UVP and the innovation-vs-implementation classification.

Live web research carries hallucination and staleness risk. Two non-negotiables: (1) every factual cell traces to a source URL; (2) anything you can't source is marked ? and listed for the founder to verify. Never present an unsourced guess as fact.

Procedure

1. Load context

Read Product/intent.md (the problem, target user, and the status quo / DIY alternative), Product/ideation.md (the bet), and Product/innovation.md (the UVP elements — UVP-1, UVP-2… become the must-have rows of the matrix). If innovation.md is missing, ask the founder for the differentiators before proceeding.

2. (Optional) seed

Ask if the founder already knows key rivals. Accept a seed list — but still search for the ones they don't know about. Unknown competitors are often the most useful finding.

3. Discover competitors (web search)

Search the live web from several angles: the problem/category, "alternatives to <known tool>", "<category> tools/software", "<rival> vs", review roundups. Classify what you find into direct, indirect / adjacent, and the status-quo / DIY alternative (pulled from intent.md — often a spreadsheet, a manual process, or "nothing"). Shortlist the 3–5 most relevant rivals so the matrix stays readable.

4. Research each rival (fan-out)

For thoroughness, spawn one subagent per shortlisted rival via the Task tool. Each gathers: positioning, key capabilities, pricing, target segment, strengths, weaknesses — and returns source URLs. Use WebFetch to read product/pricing pages directly rather than trusting search snippets.

5. Verify & source

Every factual claim cites a source. For each capability you can confirm from a source, mark the cell ✓ / ~ / ✗. For anything you cannot source, mark it ? and add it to the verification list. Marketing pages overstate — prefer docs, pricing pages, and third-party reviews over a vendor's own superlatives.

6. Build the matrix

Rows = the UVP dimensions (UVP-1…n) + the key table-stakes + ≥1 dimension a rival is strong on. Columns = Us + each shortlisted rival + Status quo (DIY). Cells: ✓ strong · ~ partial · ✗ absent · ? unverified.

7. Honesty guardrail (enforce)

If the "Us" column is ✓ on every row, STOP and push back — that is a cherry-picked marketing matrix, not analysis. Require at least one row where a rival matches or beats you (add the dimension where they're genuinely strong). This is the competitive analog of the "everything is innovation" red flag. Call it out explicitly if the founder resists.

8. Read off the implications

• Whitespace — rows where no rival (or only the DIY) is strong → the opening. Map these to UVP ids.
• Table-stakes — rows where everyone is ✓ → these capabilities should be classified implementation downstream.
• Threats — rows where rivals beat us → risks to close or concede.

9. Write Product/competition.md

Use the structure from the plugin's templates/competition.md: scope, per-rival profiles with sources, the comparison matrix, the whitespace/threats read-out, and a Confidence & verification section listing every ? cell plus the snapshot date.

10. Feed back & hand off

Summarize, for /innovate and /classify: which capabilities are table-stakes (→ implementation) and which whitespace items map to which UVP id (→ innovation). When classification runs next, this matrix is the evidence behind each classification_rationale.

Remind the founder: competition.md is a point-in-time snapshot from public sources — verify the ? cells and refresh it as rivals evolve. It's an optional companion artifact: it deepens the market/value & moat burndown but is not itself a Stage-3 gate.