| name | market-mapping |
| description | Use when the user wants to map the competitive landscape, understand where profit concentrates, identify white space, or size the opportunity. Also use when the user mentions 'competitive landscape,' 'who are my real competitors,' 'market analysis,' 'where is the opportunity,' 'profit pool,' 'customer segments,' or 'who is winning in X space.' |
Market Mapping
Maps who's in the space, where profit concentrates, and who the real customers are — before committing to a position.
Market Mapping Philosophy
Three principles that distinguish useful market maps from noise:
Profit ≠ revenue. The largest player by revenue is often not extracting the most margin. Map where profit sits — that's where power lives.
Incumbents ≠ real competition. Your real competitors are whoever your best customers would choose if you didn't exist — not whoever has the biggest marketing budget.
Segment by behavior, not demographics. "SMB marketing teams" is a demographic. "Teams who currently manage 3+ agencies and spend 20h/week on reporting" is a behavioral segment. Behavioral segments have homogeneous pain and willingness to pay. Demographic segments do not.
Player Categories
Build a 3-5 category landscape. Every player belongs in exactly one tier.
Tier 1 Incumbents — market leaders; they define the rules, the pricing norms, and the default buyer expectation. Likely losing at the edges but dominant in the core.
Tier 2 Challengers — aggressive growers; they define the disruption vector. Where incumbents are slow, challengers are fast. Where incumbents are expensive, challengers are cheap. Watch what they're building.
Adjacent Players — different business model, same customer pain. Often not on the incumbent's radar but competing for the same budget line. The most underestimated threat category.
Emerging Threats — pre-product or very early, but signal where value is shifting. Follow the venture money and the conference talk titles.
For each category: name 2-3 representative players, their business model in one line, and what they're optimizing for.
Profit Pool Analysis
Trace where margin actually sits in the value chain:
- Identify every role in the value chain (supplier → builder → distributor → customer success → end user)
- Estimate gross margin at each stage (use public comps, 10-K filings, or proxy signals)
- Find the stage where margin concentrates — that's where bargaining power lives
- Distinguish: who creates value vs who extracts value
Proxy signals when hard data is unavailable:
- Fundraising multiples (high multiples → investors believe margin is there)
- Pricing power (can they raise prices without losing customers?)
- Customer acquisition cost relative to LTV
- Churn rate (low churn → value delivered, not just locked in)
The question to answer: "If I had to pick one position in this value chain to own, which has the most defensible margin?"
Customer Segmentation
Segment by three axes, not one:
- Pain intensity — how much does this hurt, measured in money or time lost per month?
- Willingness to pay — what budget exists, and who controls it?
- Reachability — how do you get to them, and how expensive is that motion?
The segment worth targeting: highest pain × WTP × reachability — not the biggest TAM slice.
Common segmentation mistakes:
- Using demographics when behavior is available
- Treating "enterprise" and "SMB" as segments (they're sizes, not segments)
- Confusing willingness to pay with ability to pay (budget ≠ urgency)
White Space Detection
White space = a gap where:
- Pain is high (people are actively complaining, paying for workarounds, or stuck)
- Solutions are weak (incumbent tools are 10+ years old, complex, expensive, or built for a different buyer)
- No dominant player has locked in the segment (no clear market leader with strong retention)
White space must be specific enough to build a product thesis against: "Agencies with 5-20 employees who manage paid social for e-commerce clients — no one has built a reporting tool specifically for this workflow."
Output Structure
Every market map delivers:
- Market map — 3-5 player categories with brief characterization (model + optimization vector)
- Competitive moves to watch — the 1-2 strongest players' next likely moves
- Target segment — defined by pain + WTP + reachability, not just size
- Profit concentration — where in the value chain margin sits and why
- White space — the specific gap, specific enough to anchor a product thesis
Research Process
Step 1: List every player you know in the space (10-20 companies). Don't filter yet.
Step 2: Research each: What is their business model? Who is their primary customer? What do they charge? What do their best customers love? What do churned customers complain about?
Step 3: Group into tiers (Incumbent / Challenger / Adjacent / Emerging).
Step 4: For each tier, name the #1 company and describe what they optimize for.
Step 5: Apply the profit pool analysis to the value chain.
Step 6: Apply the 3-axis segmentation to identify target customers.
Step 7: Name the white space with enough specificity to build against it.
Sources: Company websites, G2/Capterra reviews (read the negative reviews), LinkedIn job postings (reveals priorities), Crunchbase (funding signals), public revenue data or S-1 filings for public companies.
Common Rationalizations
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|
| "Our market is too new to map" | Map what exists adjacent. New markets are undefended segments of old markets — find the adjacent segment and describe the migration. |
| "All segments look attractive" | Apply the pain × WTP × reachability filter. If multiple segments still look equal, you need more data on one of the three axes. |
| "We compete with everyone" | No. Name the 2-3 players your best customers would choose if you didn't exist. That's your real competitive set. |
| "Profit pool analysis requires data we don't have" | Use proxy signals: fundraising multiples, pricing power, CAC vs LTV ratios, churn rates. Pattern-match from comparables. |
Quality Bar
