How to do product positioning - the tech and AI stack you will need. Part 1

We cover market analysis sources, AI tools to use and proven effective prompts

My product positioning workbook went viral last year and 160+ people downloaded and used it.
If you have not grabbed a copy yet, get it here.

It provided a good high level overview of each step to be done on your way to product market fit, simplified and easy to use version for product managers, early stage founders and of course, product marketeers.

But it lacked something really important. One of the most frequently asked questions was HOW do you actually find this information and where you get the data from.

I get it, folks, we like to get into the details, so here is all I have to give.

My entire tack stack of tools me and my team use to do everything market research, competitive analysis and customer research.

If you like this and find it helpful, share with your colleagues and friends.
And if you have any ideas on how to improve this - let me know.

Let’s get into it.
First up - market research. If you don’t want to miss the next chapters - subscribe to the email notifications for this newsletter.

Chapter 1. Market research

Example

Here is how final report usually looks like. This is not real client we have worked with at growglobal.tech, just an example of Swiss scaleup, I thought was curious to look at.

Analytics Tools and Reports

Here is the list of tools we use at growglobal.tech and what exactly we get from them (category of insights). Most of these tools we use in free versions and for some we pay as that’s the only way to get the data.

1. GPT and Perplexity for market overview

2. GPT to identify JBTD and types of customers

3. Industry reports Mckinsey, BCG, Business of apps, Gartner – Great for enterprise tech trends, market sizing, and forecasts. Forrester – Deep research on customer behavior and emerging technology markets.CB Insights – Investment trends, startup data, and technology innovation reports,

4. Macroeconomic trends - Country reports on GDP per capita, smartphone usage, population, etc and of course OECD, Statista and WorldBank

5. Platform reports

   1. YouTube: Offers the YouTube Culture & Trends page, showcasing data and cultural analyses to understand emerging content trends

   2. Google: Publishes various reports and articles on industry trends through its Think with Google platform, covering consumer behavior, marketing strategies, and technological advancements.

   3. Meta (Facebook): Provides insights into social media usage and advertising trends through its Meta for Business portal, offering data on user engagement and platform developments)

   4. TikTok: Shares trend reports and case studies on its TikTok for Business page, highlighting popular content, user behavior, and advertising success stories.

6. Sensor Tower or Data.ai for market app analytics

7. Similar web - web traffic

8. Crunchbase and PitchBook- company information, funding, number of companies in segment, many insights on VC funding

9. Semrush, Ahrefs or Surfer SEO for keyword analysis, another new tool we found is Keyword Insights – Advanced AI-powered clustering for keyword intent..

10. Google trends

11. Software comparison and feedback - Capterra, G2,

12. SaaS specific - ProfitWell – SaaS pricing trends, churn insights, and benchmarks. OpenView Expansion SaaS Index – Benchmarks for SaaS pricing, retention, and expansion, Capchase or Lighter Capital – Insights into SaaS funding, revenue-based financing trends.

AI powered tools to help you get things done faster

1. Arc browser to organize information in the folders

2. Apify to scrape information from reddit, X, TikTok and many other places

3. Raycast - summarize information from websites, videos and ask questions

4. Notebook LM - download reports and information to ask questions about it :) acts like your own info database AI bot

5. GPT to put together market research first draft

6. Research Rabbit - for sifting through and organizing research papers. So if you are in biotech or health tech, this one is for you!

7. The Gigabrain - use this for searching info from Reddit (super easy to use)

There are some other tools of course, like Alpha Sense, but seems not even close to the budgets we can afford. But if you are in corporate - maybe worth to take a look at.

Pro tips and prompts

Prompt for LLM (GPT, Perplexity) to create companies comparison table.

You’re an expert market researcher of [add what/ marketing and content software companies]. Provide list of 50 companies which are playing in the [add field/ software for podcasts] similar to these list [add company names/ Veed.io, Podcastle, Descript] and are at [add revenue or series or any numeric data/ 1 and 100 mln in revenue].

Please, create the table with these companies with following information - Company, HQ, What they do specifically, Their website positioning, Number of employees, Highlight key features, Price, Latest news/ releases, Revenue, CEO, add the links to their website.

Prompt for LLM (GPT, Perplexity) for market overview summary and Notebook LM

You’re an expert market researcher of [add what/ marketing and content software companies]..
Based on the industry reports uploaded, please suggest top industry trends, shifts happening in the last few years, supplement with numeric data and customer insights.
Use the context information to provide stats on the growth of related markets. Format your answer in bullet points. Each bullet point must include a brief title in bold before providing the stat summary. Include reference links for each point.

Prompt for brainstorming segments and JBTDs, market maturity

“You are marketing strategist/ product manager for product [add product name and description]: It is a [service] doing [abc]. List the key market segments in [industry]. Which segment has the biggest opportunity for our [product, business}. Summarize research findings in a table with various segments in lines and following information in columns: JBTD, market size, customer needs, specific challenges in the industry related to their workflow or market conditions, segment trends, latest news on segment and JBTD and last column add sources of information”.

”You're an experienced consultant on market strategy for [add industry and segment]. You have a deep understanding and knowledge of Crossing The Chasm and how markets evolve by following the Technology Adoption Lifecycle. What is the adoption stage for the product category or technology mentioned in the context? Provide a list of reasons to explain your reasoning after your conclusion and links to internet sources to support your reasons”.

”You're an innovation consultant for [add industry and segment]. Your client is asking to understand what opportunity to target within the industry in context. They want you to consider all types of processes, segments, and use cases. Your work is to:
1. Explore and list 5 to 10 potential segments to target with this technology. Define a segment as the type of company and the buyer’s role within the industry in context.
2. Provide a list of 5 to 10 potential applications or use cases to target with this technology. An application can match a problem to be solved within the segment you listed in step 1.
The best way to think about applications or Jobs To Be Done, is to think about the different processes in the segments in step 1, and find problems to solve. Use just the information within the context section.

• Understanding challenges by [AUDIENCE] in [CATEGORY]

• Discovering problems for a target market from the perspective of the client

• Discovering problems your tech/product can solve from a product perspective

• Discovering potential segments and applications to target

• Prioritizing segments and applications to target”

Prompt for slides summary

Act as an advisor to enterpreneur and strategist for opening [description]. Your job is to create a slide deck given the context below and the structure provided. Please include references for data used and researches quoted. At [company name] we are experts in [add expertise]. We have [add services description at least 3 sentences]. Why this is important [describe in details your customers problem]. |
Create a slide deck for this with the following plan, at least 10 slides:
1. Title Slide - Should include the name and title of the project
2. Mission, Values, and Objectives - A mission and values statement for the application
3. Introduction - An introduction to the startup or novel application that you are pitching, explaining the new market you might create
4. Opportunity to be addressed - An explanation of the opportunity and the unmet need that you will address, including the implications for the use of neuroscience in the technology and how it will impact business.
5. Scientific Validity - An explanation of the science behind your idea, how it will work, and how you will test it
6. Limitations - An analysis of limitations of the product or challenges you might face in successfully launching the startup or product.
7. Target market - market size estimation, why [market and city] are the best place to be starting and the landscape of [category] at the moment
8. Target Consumer - A description of the target audience and how they will benefit from the application or product
8. Marketing Strategy - A summary of the type of ads to be presented, what markets will be targeted, the size of the market, etc
9. Implementation Plan - A plan for implementing the use of the technology in current markets