How to find the competitors your team is not monitoring yet
Your real competitors may not sell similar software. Here is how to uncover the alternatives winning your prospects—including spreadsheets, agencies, hiring, and doing nothing.
The list in your pitch deck is probably incomplete
SaaS teams often start with three products sharing their keywords, persona, and comparison pages. That list describes a category. It does not always describe the customer’s decision.
A prospect may keep a spreadsheet, hire an agency, combine Notion and Zapier, recruit someone, or postpone the project. None looks like your SaaS, yet each consumes the budget, time, or attention you are trying to win.
The useful question is not only “who sells a similar product?” but “which options do customers actually compare to make this progress?”
The four forms of competition
Separate direct products, outcome alternatives, internal substitutes, and non-consumption. Intercom’s Jobs-to-be-Done work shows why products from different categories can compete when hired for the same progress.
- Direct: another SaaS in the category.
- Alternative: an agency, freelancer, hire, or general-purpose tool.
- Internal: spreadsheets, scripts, processes, or existing tools combined.
- Inaction: the problem is tolerated because switching feels riskier than waiting.
1. Start with the job, not the category
Describe the desired progress without naming your product. “Install a CRM” traps the research. “Stop losing sales follow-ups as the team grows” opens the field to CRMs, spreadsheets, assistants, agencies, and processes.
Write: “When [situation], I want [progress], so I can [outcome].” Use it to guide interviews and searches.
- What triggers the search?
- What was used immediately before?
- Why change now?
- What makes switching risky?
- What happens if they do nothing?
2. Interview switches, losses, and cancellations
Do not simply ask people to name competitors. Reconstruct the timeline: old situation, first attempted solution, evaluated options, final anxiety, and decision.
Include new and active customers, lost prospects, and cancelled accounts. Each reveals a different part of the competitive set.
- How did you handle this before?
- Which other options did you test or consider?
- Why did you reject each one?
- What would have won if our product did not exist?
- When did the old way become unacceptable?
3. Search like a customer
Build queries from symptoms, outcomes, and old methods: “how to track,” “alternative to,” “replace,” “without,” “template for,” or “too expensive.” Then inspect results and related searches.
Google Trends separates exact terms from conceptual topics. Compare both and remember its index measures relative interest, not absolute market volume.
- Compare the problem, outcome, and category.
- Explore related and rising searches.
- Repeat by country and language.
- Record methods and brands recurring across queries.
4. Observe unscripted comparisons
Landing pages show intended positioning. Public conversations show how markets describe products. Search X, Reddit, YouTube, Stack Overflow, Product Hunt, and specialist communities for “we use,” “we replaced,” “too expensive,” or “any alternative?”
Classify evidence by job, previous solution, trigger, objection, and outcome. Ten precise conversations beat a thousand context-free mentions.
- Which solutions appear in the same sentence?
- Which workarounds are users proud of?
- Which objection appears before a recommendation?
- Which audience uses different language for the same job?
5. Read ads as positioning hypotheses
Meta Ad Library reveals active ads from known players and newly discovered brands. Analyze the promise, problem, proof, offer, and implied audience.
Search problem keywords as well as company names. Agencies, templates, courses, and new tools may be buying the same attention. An ad that keeps running for weeks or months is usually a strong signal that it is profitable or contributes to an important objective. The longer it runs and the more variants it has, the more attention it deserves.
- Core promise and outcome.
- Audience named in the hook or creative.
- Offer, price, and risk reversal.
- Active formats and apparent longevity.
6. Build an evidence map
One mention does not make an alternative strategic. Give each option an evidence level so an isolated impression cannot become a company belief.
- Customer evidence: interview, loss, or cancellation.
- Search evidence: results and related queries.
- Conversation evidence: recommendation or criticism by the target.
- Commercial evidence: positioning and ads aimed at the same job.
- Decision proximity: same budget, time, or priority.
Mistakes that make intelligence useless
The biggest risk is not missing a company. It is collecting information without knowing which decision it should change.
- Copying features instead of understanding why an alternative wins.
- Confusing visibility with adoption.
- Treating an active ad as proof of performance.
- Ignoring spreadsheets, agencies, hiring, and inaction.
- Mixing segments with different jobs.
- Producing reports with no product, marketing, or sales implication.
A seven-day sprint
Day 1: define three jobs. Day 2: review ten wins, losses, and cancellations. Day 3: search by problem and outcome. Day 4: collect conversations. Day 5: inspect ads and positioning. Day 6: consolidate evidence. Day 7: decide what changes.
- Positioning: which alternative should you make obsolete?
- Product: which friction pushes users to an internal method?
- Acquisition: where do prospects search before knowing the category?
- Sales: which objection or inertia should be addressed earlier?
What Onny can automate
Onny can run this as a recurring mission across the web, Product Hunt, X, Stack Overflow, social platforms, and Meta Ads; group alternatives by job; analyze positioning; and deliver a sourced brief through Web, Telegram, Discord, or Slack.
Automation does not replace interviews or strategic judgment. It reduces collection time, preserves history, and flags new evidence worth a decision.
- Discover new players and substitutes.
- Compare promises and audiences.
- Track positioning and campaign changes.
- Deliver weekly briefs with evidence and proposed actions.
Your most dangerous competitor may be the one your dashboard cannot name
Good competitive intelligence is not about knowing every company in a market. It is about understanding every option present in the customer’s decision.
Start with the job and combine interviews, search behavior, public conversations, and advertising. The map becomes less comfortable—and far more useful—because it shows what wins when your product loses.
Sources and further reading
Ask Onny to look beyond your category
Run a competitive research mission, receive sourced evidence, and keep the map current without repeating the investigation every week.
Explore the competitive scenario