Alternatives

What most people mean

“Competitive analysis.” A spreadsheet of companies that sell similar products. Feature comparisons. Pricing grids. Gartner quadrants. Maybe a SWOT analysis if someone’s feeling thorough.

Most businesses limit their view to direct competitors in the same category. The companies that show up when you Google your product type. The logos on the “vs” pages.

Where the definition breaks

Your customers don’t think in categories. They think in goals.

Take LatinUs Beauty. The founders were building an organic shampoo for Latinas with curly hair. If they’d only looked at other shampoos, they would have missed half the picture. Their customers also mentioned going through a “two-hour hair care routine with rollers and a blowdry,” and “going to a Dominican salon because no one else in NYC knows how to treat my hair,” and just “trying all shampoos that seem natural.” Those options go beyond the shampoo industry entirely.

Or the toilet packet company. Without looking at customer data, your mind goes straight to other odor-masking sprays. But customers also mentioned opening the bathroom window, using perfume, or just avoiding going to the toilet altogether until they felt more at ease. Those aren’t competitors. They’re alternatives.

If you only study the companies in your category, you miss the work-arounds, the shortcuts, and the bundles of solutions people cobble together to get the job done. And that’s where the real opportunities are hiding.

How we define it at STFO

Alternatives are the different paths or solutions available to people in your segment to reach their goal. Not just competitors. Everything.

That includes:

• Direct competitors (same category, same job)
• Indirect competitors (different category, same job)
• Makeshift solutions (DIY, work-arounds, duct-tape fixes)
• Doing nothing (but only when people have actually tried and given up, not when they simply don’t care)

The “doing nothing” nuance matters. If someone has never attempted to solve the problem, “doing nothing” isn’t an alternative in their mind. But if they’ve tried several solutions, failed, and gone back to the status quo, then yes, doing nothing is what you compete against.

When the list feels overwhelming, prioritize by how often each alternative comes up in customer conversations and by threat level. As Les Binet puts it, “the threat from competitors is largely a matter of size.” Your biggest competitors will be the biggest brands in the market.

And one more thing: be careful not to introduce alternatives your customers don’t mention. If you’re solving a problem they don’t recognise, you’re not competing. You’re hallucinating.

What it is NOT

• Not a list of companies that sell similar products (that’s competitor analysis, and it’s too narrow)
• Not a feature comparison chart
• Not limited to your industry or category
• Not something you define in a boardroom (it comes from customer conversations)
• Not the same as “competitive landscape” (which implies everyone is playing the same game)