whitespace-finder

name	whitespace-finder
description	Systematic unmet-needs discovery engine that maps gaps between market demand and existing solutions with quantified opportunity scores. Use when: find opportunities, unmet needs, market gaps, opportunity discovery, what should we build, where is the whitespace.

Whitespace Finder (DEPTH Model)

Map the gap between what the market demands and what exists. Produces quantified, validated opportunity scores for product and GTM decisions.

When to Use

• New product ideation
• Feature prioritization against market need
• Adjacent market exploration
• Investment thesis validation
• Pre-PRD opportunity validation

What You'll Need

Critical inputs (ask if not provided):

• Market or product category to analyze
• Target customer segment(s)
• Known competitors (or ask me to research)

Nice-to-have:

• Signal Radar output (if previously run)
• JTBD Extractor output (if previously run)
• Customer feedback or support ticket themes

Process

Step 1: Demand Evidence Collection

Audit demand across 6 evidence channels:

Channel	What to Look For	Evidence Quality
Community forums (Reddit, HN, Discourse)	Problem-statement posts, workaround discussions	Medium -- shows real pain
Review mining (G2, Capterra, TrustRadius)	1-3 star review complaint patterns, missing feature mentions	High -- verified buyers
Search demand	Volume for problem queries vs. solution queries (gap = unmet need)	High -- quantifiable
Support tickets	Recurring themes, feature requests, workaround patterns	High -- your own customers
Analyst reports	Problem statements, unmet need callouts, market gaps cited	High -- expert validation
Adjacent product requests	Features users ask for that cross product boundaries	Medium -- shows expansion opportunities

For each channel, extract the top 5 unmet needs with supporting evidence.

Step 2: Gap Matrix Construction

Build a 2D matrix:

• X-axis: Customer needs/jobs (from research or JTBD Extractor)
• Y-axis: Existing solutions in market (products, workarounds, manual processes)

Rate each cell:

Rating	Meaning
0	Completely unaddressed -- no solution exists
1	Poorly addressed -- solutions exist but are inadequate
2	Adequately addressed -- good-enough solutions exist
3	Well addressed -- strong solutions, hard to differentiate

Whitespace = cells rated 0-1 with strong demand evidence.

Step 3: DEPTH Scoring

Score each whitespace opportunity (1-10):

Dimension	What It Measures	Scoring Guide
Demand Evidence	Volume and quality of signals indicating real demand	1=anecdotal, 5=multiple sources, 10=overwhelming evidence
Existing Solutions	How well current solutions address it (inverse)	1=well solved, 5=partial solutions, 10=nothing exists
Pain Intensity	Severity of unmet need	1=nice-to-have, 5=significant friction, 10=hair-on-fire problem
Total Addressable Need	Size of population with this unmet need	1=tiny niche, 5=meaningful segment, 10=mass market
Hurdle Analysis	Barriers to entry (inverse -- high = low barriers)	1=massive barriers, 5=moderate effort, 10=easy to enter

Opportunity Score = (D x 0.25) + (E x 0.20) + (P x 0.25) + (T x 0.15) + (H x 0.15)

Classification:

• 7.5+ = Prime Opportunity (high confidence, prioritize)
• 5.0-7.4 = Promising (validate further before committing)
• Below 5.0 = Marginal (park unless strategic fit is strong)

Step 4: Opportunity Clustering

Group related whitespace opportunities into "opportunity zones" that could be addressed by a single product or feature set. Each zone gets:

• Combined DEPTH score (weighted average of constituent opportunities)
• Shared customer segment
• Common technical requirements
• Estimated effort to address

Output

Save to outputs/whitespace-[market]-[YYYY-MM-DD].md

Deliverables:

1. Gap Matrix: Heat map of needs vs. solutions with whitespace cells highlighted
2. Opportunity Scorecards: One per whitespace opportunity with DEPTH scores and evidence citations
3. Opportunity Zones: Clustered opportunities showing which can be addressed together
4. Validation Roadmap: Prioritized experiments to validate top opportunities (surveys, prototypes, landing page tests)

Chain Connections

• Next skill: Run market-analyzer to size the opportunities you discovered
• Also feeds: position-lock (validated opportunities become positioning targets), battle-scanner (whitespace informs differentiation angles)
• Enhanced by: Run after signal-radar (signals point to where whitespace may exist)