The planet we inhabit is massive. Full of great ideas and potential discoveries. At this very moment, a person just like you believes they are experiencing one of the aforementioned moments of discovery. The pure rush of adrenaline we experience during such moments trains us to manufacture more of them. On and on we go, from one great idea to the next.
It’s easy to stay trapped in a world of idea creation because new ideas are cheap and easy. Validating those ideas is where the real work begins.
Cold reality tells us that the vast majority of ideas are not new. Most have been at tried before. The difference in an idea that succeeds and fails often has little to do with the idea itself and far more to do with its execution.
Whether you are validating your own ideas or those of your client, the first thing you should do is investigate those that operate in the same field. If you’re attempting to reach the same user, you can bet that someone is attempting to reach that user like your idea.
Competitive research is the easiest way to measure an idea’s potential while minimizing the overall cost to the company. It’s also the lowest rung of initial research you can perform as it generally costs very little and can be done without permission from others.
Resources for review
Please use the following items to guide your exercise attempt:
| Article | Source/Author |
|---|---|
| Know the competition | New Pragmatic |
| Conducting competitive research | O'Reilly |
Exercise
Length: Two-to-four hours to complete.
As you worked through the program, we've covered the basics of competitive research and how to conduct heuristic testing on competitor products. Let’s put that new knowledge into practice with a new research exercise.
Meal Delivery Service Competitor Research
With your observational research and your stakeholder interviews behind you, it is time to turn your full attention to understanding the competitive landscape. To do this, you will need to uncover the obvious and not-so-obvious competitors that are competing for the attention and dollars of the users that your stakeholders are wanting to attract.
You will need to uncover how competitors position their offerings and what makes each competitor stand apart from the other.
This task has three distinct goals.
- Identify competitors and collect basic details for each. Use the Competitive Matrix provided for your data collection.
- Perform Heuristics Testing on the top three platforms.
- Produce and share a document that collects the data you have captured.
Once complete, update your Program Journal with links to any assets produced in this exercise. Post your Journal in the #Feedback-Loop channel for review.
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Up next Fresh Market: Surveys