Competitors

Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others. -Otto von Bismarck

Competitors are wonderful as they let us identify what we need to build to remain competitive. We do this in a few ways:

Competitive Analysis Framework

Category	Field	Competitor 1	Competitor 2	Competitor 3
Company Specific	# of employees
	Founded
	Funding
	Investors
	# of customers
	Strengths / Weaknesses
7 Powers	Scale Economies
	Network Economies
	Counter-positioning
	Switching Costs
	Branding
	Cornered Resource
	Process Power
Target Customer / Message	Product
	Primary Buyer / decision-maker
	Secondary Buyer
	Target Customer
	Messaging
Product Specific	Product Features
	Pricing
	Free Tier (?)
	Customers
	Product Strength
	Product Weakness
	Customer Reviews
Positioning	How to Win
	Why Customer should choose us

We optimize our growth engine around the 7 Powers framework. The framework is basically the following:

Scale economies: A business in which per unit cost declines as production volume increases.
Network economies. The value of a service to each user increases as new users join the network.
Counter-positioning. A newcomer adopts a new, superior business model which the incumbent does not mimic due to anticipated damage to their existing business.
Switching costs. The value loss expected by a customer that would be incurred from switching to an alternative supplier for additional purchases.
Branding. The durable attribution of higher value to an objectively identical offering that arises from historic info about the seller.
Cornered resource. Preferential access at attractive terms to a coveted asset that can independently enhance value.
Process power. Embedded company organisation and activity sets which enable lower costs and/or superior product.

We build experiments that help us optimize each of these powers leading to competitive moat.