How to learn from others without copying them.
ISSUE #009
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The phrase competitor analysis has always sounded like something that should come with a giant spreadsheet and maybe a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. You sit down because you know looking at what others are doing could be useful, then you open one gorgeous website, notice six things they seem to be doing better, and suddenly the thing you felt pretty good about an hour ago looks suspiciously inadequate.
Should we be doing that too? Why don’t we have one of those? Oh crap. Are we behind?
I’ve done this more times than I care to admit. Research can give you incredibly useful information, but it can also make your thinking messier if you go in without knowing what you actually want to learn.
Start with one question
Before you open a website, pull up a social feed, or start digging through another organization’s work, decide why you’re looking. Maybe you want to understand how similar organizations price something, structure a program, explain a complicated idea, divide responsibilities, or handle a process you’re rebuilding.
Pick the question first. Otherwise you start collecting whatever catches your attention. Someone has a podcast, someone else has a fancy onboarding process, another organization has a whole program you had never considered until seventeen seconds ago.
Interesting? Sure. Relevant to the decision you’re actually making? Maybe not.
A clear question gives the research somewhere to go.
Give yourself a stopping point
This is one of the simplest things I’ve learned to do, and it saves me from myself. Set a timer. Pick five organizations. Decide you are answering two specific questions and then you’re done.
Because there is always one more website you could check. One more person who might be doing it differently. One more rabbit hole that technically counts as “research.”
Eventually, more information stops helping. You’re just delaying the moment when you have to make the call.
Look for gaps, not just things to copy
Our brains are very good at spotting what someone else has that we don’t. That’s usually the least interesting part. I want to know what seems to be missing.
What is everyone making unnecessarily complicated? What question keeps going unanswered? Who doesn’t seem particularly well served by the existing options? And what language is everybody using because apparently we all agreed to say empower, transform, and unlock forever?
That space is useful. Sometimes you look at five peers and realize there is a clear standard you probably need to understand. Other times, you realize everyone is solving the same problem in roughly the same way... and there may be room for a simpler answer.
Research should help you see the landscape. It shouldn’t automatically convince you to join the crowd.
Pay attention to how they explain the work
I used to focus heavily on what competitors offered. What were they selling? How did they package it? What did they charge?
I still care about those things when they’re relevant, but the language around the work often tells you just as much. What problem are they naming? What seems most important to them? Who are they clearly speaking to? What do they assume their audience already understands?
You’re not collecting phrases to borrow. You’re looking for patterns.
If everyone describes the same problem with generic language, that’s information. If nobody seems to be answering the question your people keep asking, that’s information too.
Compare the problem before you compare the solution
This is the part I would pay much more attention to now.
Visible solutions are easy to copy. Another nonprofit created a full-time community engagement role. Another church added a second service. Another small organization uses a huge project-management system. Another founder publishes content five days a week.
You can see the solution. What you usually cannot see is everything that made that solution make sense.
How many people are on their team? What problem were they trying to solve? What budget do they have? What does their audience need? Did somebody thoughtfully design this system last year... or has it existed since 2009 because everyone is afraid to touch it?
Those are very different situations.
Before you borrow someone else’s answer, figure out whether you actually share their problem.
Write down what you learned
Research gets messy when it ends with screenshots, bookmarks, open tabs, and a vague sense that you should probably change everything. So I force an ending.
At the end of the research, write down: What did I learn?
Then: What, if anything, should I do differently because of it?
That second question matters. Sometimes you’ll find a genuinely useful idea worth adapting. Sometimes the research will expose a gap you hadn’t noticed. Sometimes you’ll realize your original approach still makes perfect sense.
That counts.
You do not have to manufacture another project just because you spent thirty minutes researching something.
Turn the research into one move
If the research does point toward a change, keep it small. Ask:
Based on what I learned, what is the one thing I should do next?
Maybe you clarify the language on a page. Maybe you rethink how you package something. Maybe you change one step in a process. Maybe you decide not to build the thing everybody else has because you finally understand why it doesn’t fit your situation.
One useful decision is better than twelve new ideas sitting in a document called “competitive research.”
Other people are context
I used to think competitor research was about figuring out how I measured up. I don’t think about it that way anymore.
The people and organizations around you are useful context. They can show you what has become standard, reveal gaps, spark ideas, and help you understand choices you haven’t made yet.
But their decisions came from their own goals, people, resources, and constraints. You don’t have to reproduce the answer.
Learn from it. Then come back to your own work and decide what actually belongs there.
Cheers to getting unscattered,
Put this into practice.
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