The Competitor Research Grid

Profile every alternative buyers consider, including workarounds and doing nothing, with a source and date for each, then build your investor competition slide.

Excel + Google Sheets · Free

What this resource helps you do

Profile every alternative buyers consider, including workarounds and doing nothing, with a source and date on each entry, and turn it into where you win and your investor competition slide.

Get the grid from AAJ's free marketing templates library.

What the Competitor Research Grid does

The Competitor Research Grid profiles every alternative buyers consider: direct rivals, adjacent tools, in-house workarounds and doing nothing. Each entry has a source and date, and the sheet highlights entries older than 90 days. Sheets: Alternatives, Profile grid, Where we win (counts of clearly-win situations), Change log, Investor slide (warns if doing nothing or a workaround is missing, or if every row favours you).

The worked example uses Example Co. and fictional Competitors A, B and C. A cited figure: research on more than 2.5 million sales conversations found 40-60% are lost to buyers who intend to buy but fail to act (Dixon and McKenna, 2022).

Read Competitive Analysis for Startups, turn the grid into one-page sales summaries with the Battlecard Builder, learn from your own deals with the Win-Loss Analyzer and write your positioning with the Positioning Statement Generator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why include "doing nothing" as a competitor?

Because many deals end in no decision. Research on more than 2.5 million sales conversations found 40-60% are lost to buyers who intend to buy but fail to act (Dixon and McKenna, 2022).

Where do I find competitor information for free?

Pricing pages, documentation, changelogs, job postings, review sites and your own won and lost deals. Use only public information and your own trials.

How is this different from a battlecard?

The grid is research across all alternatives. A battlecard is a one-page summary for a sales conversation about one competitor; build it from the grid with the Battlecard Builder.

How do I turn it into a competition slide for investors?

Use the Investor slide sheet: every alternative as a row, two or three buyer criteria as columns, plain words in the cells, one honest line on where others are stronger, and the grid in the appendix.

How often should I update it?

A light review each quarter, plus an update when a rival changes pricing or appears in several lost deals. Refresh the investor slide before each fundraising round.