Landscape First
Never build in a vacuum. Research what competitors do, how they price it, and where they're weak.
When to Use
Activates on "competitor", "market", "landscape", "research", "build feature", "launch", "redesign", "pricing", "positioning".
- Before building a new product or feature
- When asked to design pricing or positioning
- Before a redesign (what patterns work in the space?)
- When evaluating product-market fit
- Quarterly: re-pull the battlecard (markets move fast)
Procedure
1 — Identify 5-10 relevant competitors
Search broadly:
- "pairs with: our category"
- "competitors to: our product"
- "alternatives to: use case"
- "category + app", "category + pricing"
Include: market leaders, fast-growing challengers, adjacent players.
2 — Research each competitor (browser)
For each, capture in a table:
| Player | What it is | Model & price | UX strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | 1-line summary | Pricing + subscriptions | What they do better | What they miss |
Use browser tools to navigate their pages, check pricing, signup flow.
3 — Extract 3 patterns to steal
Not everything is worth copying. Identify the 3 proven UX patterns that consistently show up — these are validated by the market.
4 — Extract 3 gaps to fill
What do users complain about? What features are missing? What pricing tiers don't exist?
5 — Document the battlecard
Save the table + extracted patterns as competitive/<date>-landscape.md. Reference it in every planning session.
Worked example
One battlecard row, with the verification date recorded.
| Player | Model & price | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acme | $29/seat/mo | Fast onboarding | No audit log |
Source date: 2026-10-25; pricing page captured once and linked in the battlecard.Anti-patterns
Building in a vacuum because "we know our users." You know YOUR users. The landscape shows you who's winning them away.
- Building from memory of the market without current pages.
- Listing competitors without pricing or weakness.
- Copying a pattern without naming why it works.
Composes With
measure-first— supplements with usage data of your own productpushback-when-wrong— surfaces "users want X because competitor Y has it"bottleneck-gating— landscape gaps feed the bottleneck analysis
Verification Checklist
- [ ] 5-10 competitors are listed with a source date. (step 1)
- [ ] Each row has model, price, strength, and weakness. (step 2)
- [ ] Three proven patterns and three gaps are named. (step 3)
- [ ] The battlecard path is recorded. (step 5)
- [ ] Claims that could not be verified are marked. (step 2)