How can i uncover indirect competitors in a niche b2b software market?

[Stephen.L]

I’m trying to map out the competitive landscape for a niche B2B software product, and I’m hitting a wall trying to identify all the potential players. My initial market scan only shows the obvious direct competitors, but I know I’m missing those indirect ones that could pivot into my space or serve my same customers with a different solution. How do you systematically uncover those less obvious threats without getting lost in endless, irrelevant data?

[Daniel_G]

I learned to start with a threat map that sits next to the org chart rather than in a doc buried somewhere. We asked reps to name five players their customers also consider when they buy anything similar, not just the obvious competitors. One quarter we pulled in companies that sell data connectors or workflow automation; they aren’t direct, but customers will swap in if the new thing is easier to plug into their stack. The trick was to rely on conversations, not slides. We kept a running list and shaded entries as near-term threats vs long-term bets.

[Chloe_S]

We built a light-weight scoring filter in a spreadsheet. Three criteria: alignment with our main customer job, number of customers in target segments, and whether they publicly pivoted toward our space. Any product that hit two out of three got a closer look. It trimmed hundreds of noise signals down to a dozen plausible indirects, and we kept circling back to confirm with sales. It wasn’t perfect, but it saved us from chasing a random unicorn.

[OliviaOM]

Sometimes I wonder if we’re identifying the wrong thing entirely. The bigger risk could be messaging or pricing that makes customers choose a tool that isn’t a threat to ours. I asked a few customers if they would switch if we offered a cheaper contract or better onboarding, and the answers were mixed. Are we even solving the real job to be done, or just cataloging vendors?

[Jonathan.T]

There was a period when I started tracking a bunch of adjacent spaces and I drifted into data governance and IT service desks, which felt off topic but turned out to reveal a few near misses when a customer used our feature in a different way. The lesson? keep a watch list but don’t chase every signal; we cut weekly summaries to a few lines per entry and that helped avoid a data swamp.