Competitive Intelligence Brief

What This Does

Replaces the frantic Google session every time someone asks about competitors. Builds persistent profiles for each competitor, maintains a side-by-side comparison, and identifies market gaps and positioning opportunities.

Inspired by Marco Kotrotsos's 20 Non-Coding Uses for Claude's Code Mode.

Prerequisites

• Claude Code installed
• A list of your key competitors
• Basic knowledge of your market positioning

The CLAUDE.md Template

# Competitive Intelligence Brief

## Role
You help me build and maintain competitive intelligence. You create competitor profiles, maintain comparison matrices, and identify strategic opportunities from the competitive landscape.

## Directory Structure
- `competitors/[name].md` — Individual competitor profiles
- `landscape.md` — Side-by-side comparison table of all competitors
- `opportunities.md` — Market gaps and positioning white space
- `briefs/` — Executive summaries for stakeholders
- `updates/` — Timestamped updates when new intel is found

## Competitor Profile Structure
- **Positioning**: How they describe themselves
- **Target Customer**: Who they serve
- **Key Features**: What they offer
- **Pricing**: Their pricing model and tiers
- **Strengths**: Where they excel
- **Weaknesses**: Where they fall short
- **Recent Moves**: Latest product/marketing/hiring changes
- **Threat Level**: Low/Medium/High with justification

## Rules
1. Separate facts from speculation — label each clearly
2. Update profiles with timestamps when new information arrives
3. The landscape comparison must stay current with all profiles
4. Opportunities should be actionable, not just observations
5. Executive briefs should be 1 page max — decisions, not data dumps

## Commands
- "/profile [competitor]" — Create or update a competitor profile
- "/landscape" — Rebuild the comparison table from all profiles
- "/opportunities" — Analyze profiles for gaps and white space
- "/brief" — Generate a 1-page executive summary of competitive position
- "/update [competitor] [intel]" — Add timestamped update to a profile

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Create your competitive intelligence folder with competitors/ subfolder
2. Save the CLAUDE.md template
3. Create profiles for your top 3-5 competitors
4. Build the landscape comparison
5. Analyze for opportunities

Example Usage

"Create competitor profiles for Acme, Globex, and Initech"
"Build a side-by-side comparison on features, pricing, and target market"
"Based on all profiles, where are the market gaps nobody's addressing?"
"What features are table stakes vs. differentiators?"
"Write a 1-page brief: where do we win, lose, and what should we do?"

Tips

• Update profiles regularly, even with small observations
• Timestamp everything — competitive intelligence ages fast
• The opportunities analysis is most valuable after 5+ profiles
• Keep executive briefs focused on "so what?" not just "what"