Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring Budget

Product Camp Austin #11 – July 2013

Doug Fierrodhfierro@gmail.com

Guidelines• This session will focus on how to gather raw competitive intelligence

data• Focused on B2B companies• How you organize the data, prioritize vendors, gain insights, and

publish it for internal stakeholder usage is enough work for separate session in the future!

• Never misrepresent who you are during your competitive research (registering for webinars, interacting at trade shows, etc.)

• Basically anything published and publicly available on the internet is fair game

• Don’t be afraid to talk to other vendors and customers at trade shows, conferences, etc.

• You can get juicy information watching two vendors (or customers of competing vendors) battling it out in public!

• The competitive landscape is always changing- this is not a one-time effort to be set aside afterwards

• Don’t be afraid of larger companies with more resources than you

Where To Start?• Internet search is the fastest and easiest way to start

gathering information about a company or a product:• Set up a recurring Google Alert (google.com/alerts)• Search suggestions:

– Company name– Product name(s)– Target market or industry– Names of visible employees who are often quoted or speak at

presentations (Directors, CTO, VP, CEO, etc.)

• However, there are plenty of other good sources of data that are beyond a simple internet search…

Other Sources• In no particular order:

– Company website and press releases– YouTube (especially the comments section!)– Community forums & groups (online and local / regional meetings)– Published articles and reviews– Trade shows and events– Your own employees – sales, services, marketing, etc.

• Includes win/loss analysis– Published knowledge bases, manuals, release notes– Sign up on company sponsored mailing lists, groups (LinkedIn), etc.– Developer forums, APIs, support & partner portals– Resumes and job postings– Public SEC filings (S1s, 10Ks, etc.)– Partners & resellers– Investment / venture capital resources & funding– Leveraging Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws

• http://www.nfoic.org/state-foi-resources – Search on terms like “I hate <product>” or “<product>sucks.com”

What To Capture• Because Product Management serves many internal

stakeholders, you should capture a wide range of information and only publish what is relevant for your target audience

• Suggestions:• Keep one master summary list with basic fields /

columns to track– Company name, HQ, website link, product(s), frequency

encountered, win/losses, brief description, # customers, # employees, $ revenue, threat level, funding history

• For a subset of vendors, do a deeper analysis• Produce consumable material for sales, marketing, etc.

– Have internal vs. external versions of each analysis produced

CAPTURE EXAMPLES

Intelligence Gathering Example

• Let’s pick a hypothetical company to gain competitive intelligence on

• Press release info last few months:– New VP of sales on July 9th

– IPO offering May 22nd – New 8.0 release on March 23rd

– Lots of customer deal announcements vs. “fluff” releases like surveys, awards, events, etc.

• Let’s drill down on the IPO announcement…

SEC Filing Example• Public companies have to file certain forms with the SEC• Search on SEC forms here:

– http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html • The Tableau S1 (Amended) reveals quite a bit about their company and

products:– Over 12,000 customers, and some larger ones are named– Top line growth of 93% from 2010 to 2012 ($34M/$62M/$128M)– Recently invested in APIs to support partner ecosystem– Employee growth from 749 in Dec 2012 to 843 in March 2013

• 360 are in sales and mktg; 227 in development; 82 in services; 63 in G&A;– Percentage of revenue that is maintenance vs. new license– List of their perceived competitors– Deals over $100K increased from 111 in 2012 to 239 in 2012– They are currently developing a SaaS offering- Tableau Online– 83% of their total revenue in 2012 was derived from North America– Plan to expand internationally (target countries listed) and focus sales to public

sector– Financial health - $40M in cash and short term assets– 90% of licenses are perpetual vs. 10% term; maint fees avg 25% of license costs– Over 90% of their sales staff are direct vs. channel sales– Architecture overview and products offered– Growth strategy– …and more !

Posted Job Listings & Descriptions

• You can find out about how a company is organized, skills dependencies, where they are expanding hiring, and locations by looking at job postings

• Also resumes of former employees can reveal product and company information of interest

YouTube Research• No budget to travel to a trade show or event?• Lots of Tableau videos created by the vendor and others: demos, tutorials,

customer testimonies, etc.

Pricing• Tableau GSA pricing schedule published by a reseller:• http://www.triadtechpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/Tableau-GSA-

Price-List-April-2013.pdf

Tableau LinkedIn Group• Most of these forums are open, but moderated:

Find Out What Users Are Saying…• There is no substitute for real world customer commentary and testimony!• Find discussion forums that are not vendor sponsored• Example: http://tableaufriction.blogspot.com/

Find Out What Users Are Saying…• Here is another example : http://www.networking-forum.com/

Watch Others Battle It Out In Public• Entertaining, but not a recommended best practice

I Love To Hate ….• There is strong correlation between public dislike of a company or

product and the amount of negative information available to research!

What About Small Private Companies?

• More difficult, but not impossible

• Crunchbase is a good place to start if they have received any funding in the past…

Share Your Experiences!

Tips and Resources Provided During Session

• Other resources:• www.newsle.com • www.glassdoor.com• www.Indeed.com • www.datasift.com• www.rapportive.com • AngelList (angel.co)• Read fine print of published product terms and

conditions!• (sorry if I missed yours!)

THANK YOU!