Run this before your next feature sprint. Half a day to set up, a week to fill in, a permanent reference afterwards. The worksheet has four parts: a competitor map, a parity audit, a difference audit, and the ratio check.

Part 1: Map the category

List every competitor, adjacent product, and near-analogue your prospects compare you to. Include three that are older than you and three younger. Age cohorts reveal where the category is heading.

Competitor A — [URL]
Competitor B — [URL]
Adjacent product A — [URL]
Adjacent product B — [URL]
Near-analogue from another industry — [URL]
[Add as many rows as the category demands; aim for 5-10]

Part 2: Audit parity

Walk each competitor's marketing site, G2 page, and public changelog. List every feature they claim. The ones appearing on more than half of them are points of parity. Write them in the parity column.

Parity column (table stakes — you must have, cannot win on)

[Feature 1 — present on more than half of competitors]
[Feature 2 — present on more than half of competitors]
[Feature 3 — present on more than half of competitors]
[Continue until the list is exhaustive]

Part 3: Look for absences

Features present on one or two competitors but not the rest are either that competitor's point of difference or a failed experiment. Investigate which. If it is a true point of difference, list it in the difference column. If it is a failed experiment, drop it.

Difference column (things only you — or one competitor — do)

[Feature / workflow — on which competitor / absent elsewhere]
[Feature / workflow — on which competitor / absent elsewhere]
[The thing you think you are building that nobody else has]
[The thing you validated with real prospects, not just imagined]

Part 4: Drop column

Features you have already built that the market does not value and competitors do not copy. The honest entries go here. This is usually the shortest column and the most useful one — every entry is sprint time you can reclaim.

Drop column (built but nobody cares)

[Feature — why you built it, why nobody uses it]
[Feature — why you built it, why nobody uses it]
[The experiment that did not convert and should be retired]

Part 5: Ratio check

Count the entries in each column. A healthy pre-seed ratio is roughly: 60-80% parity, 10-20% difference, 5-10% drop. If your difference column is shorter than your drop column, you have a positioning problem. If your parity column is missing obvious items, you have a consideration problem. If your drop column is empty, you are not being honest.

Ratio

Parity count: ___ ( ___ % of total)
Difference count: ___ ( ___ % of total)
Drop count: ___ ( ___ % of total)

Inspiration research (bonus)

Once a quarter, run a smaller version of this from OUTSIDE your category. What pattern from a developer tool, a consumer app, or a services business could become your next point of difference? Linear borrowed keyboard shortcuts from developer tools. Stripe borrowed documentation style from academic papers. The best points of difference rarely come from inside your category.

Most of your product is what competitors already do. The business is the two or three things they do not — and the research is what tells you which is which, before you have spent four months finding out.

Template from Marga Haus · margahaus.com/resources · Adapt and use freely. Attribution appreciated, not required.

Points of parity vs difference — audit worksheet