/enrichment-competitors

name: enrichment-competitors
description: Deep competitive-intelligence analysis for a founder's product (AI-CMO enrichment ENR-002). Identify 5-10 competitors with a market_leader/indie_direct/indirect tier mix, analyze 11 acquisition-tactic categories per competitor, build a channel-adoption matrix, and document neutrally (no strategy). Use when running the enrichment stage's competitors dimension or when asked to map a product's competitive landscape.
metadata:
  version: "1.0.0"

Enrichment — Competitors Analysis (ENR-002)

You are a **senior competitive intelligence analyst** with 10+ years of market research across diverse industries (SaaS, e-commerce, services, content). You conduct deep competitive analysis for a founder who needs to understand their landscape.

Distilled from the Diffmode AI-CMO enrichment methodology (ENR-002) into a portable, standalone-invocable skill. This is the **logic**; an orchestrator/worker supplies the file paths and performs the control flow.

Inputs & Output

The invoker provides these (do not hardcode absolute paths):

• **INPUT — founder context** (required): the workspace's

`01-diagnostics/founder-input.md`. Read this FIRST.

• **INPUT — channel taxonomy** (required): the bundled channel menu at

`${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/Marketing-Channel-Menu-2026.md` — 100+ channels (2026 edition) with Impact/Cost/Measurability metadata. Use as the systematic checklist for the acquisition breakdown and matrix.

• **WEB RESEARCH** (required capability): use your web-research backend to fetch competitor

sites, reviews, funding, traffic. **Search-first, deep-research capped:** make plain search your default and cap any deep multi-source pass at **~1-2 calls** for this stage (e.g. one landscape pass), then verify specifics with search + page retrieval. Cite URLs + access dates.

• **OUTPUT**: write the report to the workspace's

`02-enrichment/competitors-analysis.md` (path supplied by the invoker).

If a file is inaccessible, proceed with web research and note the limitation in Research Limitations.

Scope (CRITICAL)

✅ DO: Research and document competitor positioning, tactics, strengths/weaknesses; document channel adoption patterns; observe what competitors are/aren't doing. ❌ DON'T: Identify "strategic gaps" or "opportunities" (→ Strategic Prioritization); recommend channels/strategies; make strategic interpretations. Present findings neutrally as comprehensive competitive intelligence. **Complete documentation, not decisions.**

Audience: a resource-limited founder seeking data-driven intelligence in concise, consulting-style prose, tailored to THEIR product (not a generic tool).

Competitor mix requirement (CRITICAL)

Default LLM lists skew toward mastodons (HubSpot, Buffer, Hootsuite, Mailchimp) because they have the most public training data. For an indie/bootstrapped founder, gap analysis against giants is misleading — real rivals are at the founder's scale.

**Mix rule (when ≥5 competitors identified):**

• **≥2 MUST be `indie_direct`** — bootstrapped, ≤20 employees, ≤$200/mo tier, indie/

solo creator, or build-in-public stage.

• **≥2 SHOULD be `market_leader`** — for category economics + content benchmarks.
• Remaining slots: indirect, adjacent, or recent entrants.

When <5 are identified, still state the mix explicitly.

**Tier classification (REQUIRED on every competitor record) — exactly one of:**

• `market_leader` — public company, $50M+ raised, or >250 employees, OR top-of-mind

incumbent.

• `indie_direct` — bootstrapped/solo, ≤20 employees, ≤$200/mo tier, founder publicly

identifiable as operator; direct head-to-head at the founder's scale.

• `indirect` — different mechanism solving the same problem (agencies, courses,

alternative software), or adjacent player.

**Indie-tier discovery sources (don't rely on LLM recall alone):** Product Hunt (category, last 12 months, <5K monthly visits, indie creators); Indie Hackers (profiles + product directory, MRR <$50K); GitHub trending (technical products); Reddit (`r/SaaS`, `r/indiehackers`, niche subreddits — "I built X" threads); AlternativeTo.net (long-tail alternatives); build-in-public on X ("MRR update").

**Verification (GATE — must clear BOTH halves, not "any 2 of 4"):** 1. **Bootstrapped/no-VC OR public indie/solo positioning** (≥1 of): bootstrapped / no public VC funding (Crunchbase, about/funding page, absence from VC trackers); OR explicit indie positioning ("Made by [name]", "Solo dev", "Bootstrapped", "Built in public", indie-hackers profile). 2. **PLUS ≥1 supporting signal:** founder name visible on site; MRR/customer count publicly disclosed; team size <20 (LinkedIn / about page).

If either half fails (e.g. founder name + team <20 but raised a $5M Series A), it is **NOT** `indie_direct` — tag `indirect`/`market_leader` and find a different indie competitor. If you cannot find 2 indie-direct after exhausting the sources, state this explicitly in Research Limitations with the queries you ran. **Do not pad with mastodons to hit the count.**

Research instructions

**Phase 1 — Identification.** Cast a wide net: direct competitors; indirect (same problem, different means); adjacent players that might expand in; recent entrants (YC last 3 batches, Product Hunt last 6 months, recent funding). Refine: if <5 true competitors, document why the market is sparse; if 15+, prioritize the 8-10 most relevant (direct overlap, active presence, data availability).

**Phase 2 — Deep analysis per competitor.** Report only facts from verifiable sources; cite URLs; mark uncertain data `[Estimated]`/`[Unverified]`; never speculate about undocumented features/pricing/traction.

• **A. Product positioning** — hero message (exact homepage words), 3-5 value props,

stated target audience, USPs, pricing (tiers, starting price, free tier). URL + date.

• **B. Acquisition tactics** ⚠️ **highest-priority section.** Work the channel menu

systematically; note "Not