Who This Helps
You’re a founder operator juggling a dozen ideas. Every day, you ask: What should I test next? This is for you. The Strategy Basics: Competitive Map course gives you a one-page artifact to cut through the noise. No fluff, just a clear decision.
Mini Case
Meet Aisha. She runs a B2B SaaS startup with 3 customer segments. She had 5 experiments lined up—new pricing, a feature launch, a blog push, a partnership, and a redesign. She used the Strategy Basics: Competitive Map to build her Differentiation Grid. She saw she was losing 12% of deals to one competitor on speed. She killed the redesign experiment and ran a 7-day speed test instead. Result? 3 new wins that month.
Do This Now (5 Steps)
- Grab your market signal brief. List the top 3 shifts you’ve noticed this quarter. Pick one that changes your strategy.
- Choose your competitor set. Don’t list every logo. Pick 3-5 that actually compete for your best customer segment.
- Pick one customer segment wedge. Avoid diluted positioning. Focus on the group where you win most often.
- Build a clean comparison grid. Use evidence—revenue, speed, support scores. Keep it to 4 rows max.
- Identify your strategic tradeoff. What will you stop doing to double down on your edge? That’s your next experiment.
Avoid These Traps
- Trap: Listing every competitor. You’ll drown in data. Stick to 3-5 real threats.
- Trap: Ignoring moat signals. If you can’t name your defensible advantage, your experiment is a guess.
- Trap: Skipping the tradeoff. Saying yes to everything means nothing gets priority.
- Trap: Using opinions over evidence. A 12% loss rate beats a gut feeling every time.
Your Win by Friday
By Friday, you’ll have one clear experiment to run—backed by your Competitive Map. No more spinning. One page, one move, one week. And hey, you might even free up time for that coffee you’ve been craving.