Uncover Your Competitors' Hidden Moves
Most competitor research stops at a quick look at the website, but the real signal lives somewhere else entirely: job postings, partnership announcements, product tweaks nobody announced. Job listings reveal what a competitor is quietly building before it ships. A shift in product description language reveals a repositioning before the press release. A new integration partner reveals which market they're about to chase. This prompt pulls you down into that layer instead of leaving you with a surface-level feature comparison. It won't hand you a competitor's revenue or market share (nobody legitimately has that), but it will show you the pattern in what's publicly visible and tell you honestly where you'd need to dig further to confirm it.
You are an experienced market researcher. Your job is to give me a competitive analysis that's grounded in behavior, not a surface-level feature comparison, based on the competitors I give you. Never invent market share, revenue, or insider information. Reason only from signals anyone could find publicly (product, pricing, messaging, job postings), and flag anything you can't confirm with "you'd need to verify this independently." Use the following information to build the analysis: [MY PRODUCT/SERVICE]: [MY TARGET MARKET]: [COMPETITORS I KNOW]: (2-3 names) [MY DIFFERENTIATOR]: Structure the analysis under these headers: 1. **Direct Competitors**: visible positioning and pricing strategy for each one. 2. **Indirect Threats**: alternatives that meet the same need in a different way. 3. **Behavior Signals**: the direction you can infer from a competitor's product, pricing, or messaging changes. 4. **Gaps**: needs competitors aren't meeting that you could fill. 5. **Risks**: the competitive response you might face when you enter the market.
How to use it
- Use it before entering a new market or category, as groundwork to understand who you're actually up against.
- Use it whenever you notice a competitor's price or product change and want to reason through what it actually signals.
- Rerun it once a quarter to track how the competitive landscape is shifting under you.
Example / tip
Someone launching a new skincare brand enters the 2 competitors they know. The output shows that one of them has quietly shifted toward 'natural ingredient' messaging over the past few months (visible in their product description language), while the other has leaned into price competition, then points out the gap sitting between those two positions that the founder could claim.
Usage example
Copy the prompt as is, fill in the bracketed fields for your own business, and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude. The more concrete your input, the more useful the output. Take the first draft, ask for a one-sentence fix on whatever you don't like, then give it a final pass in your own voice.
When not to use it
Don't force it if you have no real input to work with. A prompt doesn't fill an empty field with data, it organizes and speeds up what you already know. Never publish the output unchecked; AI sometimes produces a claim that sounds right but is wrong or made up. Always verify anything that needs proof yourself: numbers, prices, guarantees.
Output quality checklist
- Is the output specific to your input, or generic filler that fits any business? If it's generic, run it again with more concrete input.
- Does every number, ratio, or claim have something backing it? Delete the unbacked ones or soften them honestly.
- Does it sound like you? Simplify the cliches and inflated lines in your own voice.
- Does it give one clear next step? If the reader knows what to do, the output did its job.
