I found this fascinating quote today:
If you look at our portfolio, you’ll see quite a few startups created by young visionaries and quite a few startups created by serial entrepreneurs who are swinging for the fences. There isn’t much else to be honest.avc.com, A VC, Oct 2009
You should read the whole article.
{ 2 comments }
The last component I’ll discuss of the competitive analysis process is culling marketing and sales collateral from your list of identified competitors.
Why do this?
You want to be acquainted with what they are putting out there. It should give you a sense of how their products are being positioned (however poorly or not). In turn, that should give you a sense of a) how strong your own positioning is and b) positioning around that competitor as a result.
These materials can also be used as a quick way to give others in your organization an idea of the lay of the land. It’s better for your sales guys to go in to a discussion about why your product is better as prepared as they can be, instead of not really knowing how the competitor’s wares are being sold. By sharing these materials cross-functionally, you setup the chance everyone knows what a prospect has already hard and/or read so points can be more easily communicated and/or refuted if need be.
So sure, it’s a study in MarCom. But all in all, that’s not a bad thing, due to the core messaging via those materials.
The process doesn’t require a lot of explanation – collect what you can, study it, decide what is important and why, and discard the rest.
{ 1 comment }
One of the regular questions I (and I’m sure others) face when it comes to competitive analysis is, “what are they charging?”
This is an especially tricky question to answer accurately.
I’ve gone about this in a couple of different ways – obviously, when you are dealing with B2C companies that publicize their prices, it’s simple. But before getting in to potential methods for gathering this data, I wanted to bring up a point as to why this is important information to acquire.
The first is sales. When you are assisting your sales team, it’s beneficial to have information (that you probably don’t want them presenting to prospects) regarding prices. It helps to know whether you are seriously undercutting a deal or coming in way too high.
The second is to assist you with value-based pricing. I’ve written about pricing before from a different approach (cost-plus), with regards to a specific scenario. But value-based becomes critical the further your product proceeds through its lifecycle.
But, I digress.
Now, I’m certainly not advocating being unethical here. You have to make the choice as to whether gathering pricing data is worth going through this process for your organization.
It comes down to engaging your identified competitors in a brief conversation – typically with one of their sales reps. You don’t want to take up a lot of their time and resources with this. Get the pricing, maybe some information regarding how they are positioning to early-stage prospects, and move on.
I feel like I’m exposing some secret here, perhaps foolishly. Maybe not. Chances are, if you aren’t doing this with your competitors, they are probably doing it with your sales reps. I seem to recall (maybe incorrectly) that Rich Mironov had a great chapter on an effective process for gathering this information in his book The Art of Product Management. I would verify that, but can’t quickly find the book for some reason.
Your next question might be, “OK once I have a competitor on the line, what do I ask?” The trick is to keep it short and simple. Of course, you’re going to need to tell them you are calling from Some Company A and are interested in buying their product and/or service. Really, it’s that straightforward. I don’t like doing it, but I feel that the data is valuable information to have. And again, some product manager from that company is probably calling in to my business to achieve the same result.
Of course the conversation will take some turns and you can glean further data. But once you have what you need, just tell them you aren’t interested so the conversation can close out and you don’t show up in their pipelines and sales reports. Not for any reason other than, it’s just a drain on their time and resources, which you don’t want.
{ 0 comments }
How I missed this one yesterday I don’t know. But whatever you do, be sure to read through Fred Wilson’s post Ten Characteristics of Great Companies. Awesome stuff, and well worth the time to check out.
{ 4 comments }
