Diving Deep inside a Global Competitor

Sanjay Vijayakumar

“Indian startups don't do well globally because of wrong

competitor benchmarking.

We should look at what the best is globally and then instead of re-inventing the wheel; take it from there to 10x better”

Shekhar Kirani, Accel Partners and Board Member - Freshdesk in his communication to Sanjay Vijayakumar, SV.CO on March 6, 2017

Thesis: Learn from the best. Beat them by building 10x better &

faster! (or be beaten in the process)

How to benchmark globally?

Step 1/7: Create a list of 5 global competitors to your product and narrow

them down to who is the leader/ No 1.

Step 2/7: Signup and become a customer of that product.

Step 3/7: Dive deep into the competitor product on how they are solving the problem for the customer.

Learn insights into what is the approach taken by competitor to solving the problem.

Step 4/7: Note down your experience as a user on how they delight the customer in

terms of User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)

Step 5/7: Identify the number 1 aka core feature which is done

well in the product.

Step 6/7:Identify where all the product can be improved in

terms of UI/UX/Business Model

Step 7/7: Create your actionable game plan for beta on how you will beat this competitor now that you know whats the No 1 feature of best product in the world and its limitations right now for customers.

Pro Tip: To do this task well, Go through previous topic of Customer Persona by Vishnu Gopal to

have a clearer understanding of how your competitor is thinking from the customers

viewpoint and building the solution.

Todo Target: Deep Dive and Benchmark your product to a Global Customer to find where you stand today.Gain insights on what should you do next to create

your beta product in terms of technology and UI/UX

Todo Target: Deep Dive and Benchmark how the competitor

acquires customers.

ProTip: Team lead to Start planning work within the team so that different members

can do both tasks simultaneously.

Don’t forget to check the Rubric for pointers.