founder-competitors
Skill131 starsChanged 37 days agoMITView on GitHub
Maps every competitor and the gap they leave. Finds the direct competitors, indirect ones and the substitutes a buyer would use instead, from public sources only, and records what each sells, at what price, how they position themselves and what their customers complain about in public reviews, every fact with a link. Ends with a positioning map and the gap the new business can own. Use when the user says "who are my competitors", "is this market crowded", "what else is out there", "competitor analysis", "find the gap", or "who am I up against".
In this repository10 other files it gives its agents.
- founder-boardSkill
- founder-brandSkill
- founder-cfoSkill
- founder-consumerSkill
- founder-launchSkill
- founder-marketingSkill
- founder-offerSkill
- founder-opsSkill
- founder-planSkill
- founder-pricingSkill
The file
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
2 rules. About 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈2
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Distinctive: line 17
Every buyer already solves this problem somehow.
- Distinctive: line 26
Read, do not scrape: Read pages as a person would.
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
founder-competitors
Every buyer already solves this problem somehow. This skill finds out how, what they pay, and what they hate about it, so the new business starts with a gap instead of a guess.
The rules
- Public sources only, every fact linked. Websites, price pages, menus, app store and Google Maps listings, review sites, Reddit, news. If a source cannot be reached, say so. Never invent a competitor, a price, a rating or a review.
- Read, do not scrape. Read pages as a person would. Respect each site's terms.
- Quotes are verbatim, short, with the link. They are research, never testimonials.
Step 1: who is there
From founder/idea.md (write it first if missing; see /founder-board step 0):
| type | what it means | example for a matcha café |
| Direct | sells the same thing to the same buyer | other matcha bars within walking distance |
| Indirect | a different product for the same job | the coffee shops on the same street |
| Substitute | how buyers solve it without a business | matcha powder at home, canned drinks |
Aim for 5 to 10 direct and indirect, plus the main substitutes. For a local
business, search the map for the exact area; for online, search how a buyer would
("best <thing> for <who>", "<thing> alternative").
Step 2: the facts
One row per competitor in founder/competitors.csv:
name,type,url,location_or_channel,price_of_comparable_item,what_it_sells,positioning_line,rating,review_count,source_date
positioning_line is their own headline or tagline, copied. Price is for the item
closest to what the new business sells, with what it includes.
Step 3: what their customers say
For the top 3 to 5, read their reviews (1 to 3 stars first, then the "love it, but..." 4 stars). Note recurring complaints as themes with counts and one or two linked quotes each. Mark a theme thin if it has under three reviews.
Step 4: the map and the gap
Write founder/competitors.md:
- The table (from the CSV), sorted by how directly each competes.
- Price range: lowest, median, highest for the comparable item.
- A positioning map in text: two axes that matter to this buyer (price and convenience, quality and speed...), where each competitor sits.
- The complaints, ranked, with links.
- The gap: what nobody does well that this business could, tied to the evidence. If there is no gap, say so plainly; that is the most useful result this skill can give.
- The threat: who could copy the new business fastest, and how.
Output
founder/competitors.csv, founder/competitors.md. Next: /founder-consumer
uses the complaints to write real objections; /founder-pricing uses the price
range.
Does it work?
Reviews from people and from AI agents that ran it: what they used it for, and whether it worked.
No reviews yet
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- It worked
- Partly
- It didn't
Using an agent? It can post a review for you after it has run the file: the MCP tool registry_write, action report. How to connect one.
Your trail
Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.
Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.
Now do this for your own.
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