market-landscape-scan skill

Market Landscape Scan

Purpose

Map a market's structure using a workflow, not a one-shot answer: search plan → segmentation → player mapping → dynamics → whitespace → next-step options. The output is the landscape view that everything downstream stands on — sizing needs to know the segments, positioning needs to know the players, and competitor deep-dives need to know who's worth the effort. This skill maps structure, not magnitude: it tells you who plays where and why, not how big the prize is.

Input

Works best with: the market, segment, or problem space to map — in your words, not an analyst category — and the decision this landscape should support (market entry, new product line, re-positioning, build-vs-buy). Also useful: any boundary narrower than global — geography, buyer size, price band — and players you already know about, so the scan spends its effort on what you don't.

Input supplied inline with the invocation — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it against the question budget; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. The skill opens with at most 3 questions (market, decision, boundary) and proceeds on labeled assumptions if they go unanswered — that's the autonomous-investigation contract.

Example invocation: Run a market landscape scan on developer-facing API observability tools, EU-only — this supports a Q4 market-entry decision.

Key Concepts

contract — question budget of 3, search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, Just Enough Mode, stable schema, 4-option Final Step.

• Governing protocol: this skill honors the autonomous-investigation

GEOINT/DEMOINT for segment reality-checks and FININT for funding signals — see intelligence-collection-disciplines.

• Discipline mix: primarily OSINT (analyst and review coverage, press, communities) with

carve it — and note where the two disagree. Analyst quadrants are a map someone else drew for their own purposes; the disagreement between vendor categories and buyer reality is often where the opportunity hides.

• Buyer-view segmentation. Map the market as buyers experience it, not as vendors or analysts

substitutes and non-consumption as competitors is the most commercially useful habit in market analysis — the biggest rival is usually the status quo, and it never shows up in a quadrant.

• Non-consumption is a competitor. "They use spreadsheets" belongs on the player map. Treating

Empty space is either opportunity or evidence of no demand; the honest counter-reading is mandatory, not optional.

• The dead-zone test. Every whitespace claim must survive the question "or is it a dead zone?"

market share, growth rates, customer claims.

• Do-not-invent list (this domain's fabrication risks): companies, products, funding rounds,

Application

If unanswered, proceed with labeled assumptions.

1. Credit inline context, then ask only the unanswered questions (max 3):
2. What market or problem space, in your words?
3. What decision should this landscape support?
4. Any boundary — geography, buyer size, price band?

company and pricing pages, funding databases, industry press, trade bodies, practitioner communities), and how facts will be separated from inference. Continue unless revised.

1. Show the 3-bullet search plan — what you'll search, source types (analyst and review sites,

that quarterly re-scans diff against.

1. Research in Just Enough Mode and emit the schema below exactly — it is the stable base

Output schema (do not reorder)

~~~markdown

Market Landscape Snapshot

1. Scope

Market / problem space: | Boundary: | Decision supported: | As-of date:

2. How This Market Segments

• [3-5 segments as buyers experience them, each 1 bullet]
• [Where vendor categories disagree with buyer reality: 1 bullet]

3. Player Map

Direct players

• [Name]: [who they serve; wedge; 1 momentum signal; URL]

Adjacent players (could enter)

• [Name]: [why adjacency matters; URL]

Substitutes and non-consumption

• [What buyers do instead]: [why it persists]

Emerging entrants

• [Name]: [what bet they're making; funding/traction signal; URL]

Cap the full map at 12 players; strongest signal only.

4. Dynamics

• Where the money is: [2 bullets, labeled]
• Where the momentum is: [2 bullets, labeled]
• Consolidation or fragmentation: [1 bullet]
• Technology or regulatory shifts in play: [1-2 bullets]

5. Whitespace and Dead Zones

• [Apparent gap]: opportunity or dead zone? [evidence either way]
• [2-3 of these, each with the honest counter-reading]

6. So What?

Each bullet: label, confidence, URL where relevant. ~~~

• 3 implications for the decision named in Scope
• 2 players to deep-dive next
• 3 assumptions to validate

A copy/paste fill-in version of this schema, with quality checks, lives in template.md.

Final Step (offer exactly 4 options)

1. Run competitive-research-snapshot on the deep-dive players
2. Run tam-sam-som-calculator sizing on the most promising segment
3. Draft a positioning hypothesis against this landscape (positioning-statement)
4. Schedule-ready version: what should a quarterly re-scan watch?

Accept 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 and 2, Verbose Mode, or a custom path.

Examples

Segmentation catching a vendor/buyer disagreement (all names fictional):

Vendors in this space market three categories: "observability platforms," "APM," and "log

management." Buyers in practitioner forums segment differently — Fact