Founders often start building because they feel a problem. That is a good reason to start. It is not a good reason to skip finding out who else is already working on it.

I have seen teams spend months on a product, then discover in a sales call that the buyer already uses something that does most of it. The product wasn't bad. It was late, or it was solving the part of the problem everyone else already solved.

My advice: before you build, map the market on one page. Who is in it, what each one does, who they sell to and where they overlap. It takes days. It can save months.

What a market map is for

A market map is not a pitch deck slide with logos in a grid. It is a working tool for making decisions.

It should help you answer:

  • Which capabilities does nearly everyone offer? Those are table stakes.
  • Which capabilities are rare? Those might be a gap, or a sign nobody wants them.
  • Who sells to the buyer you have in mind, and who sells to someone else?
  • Is the market getting more crowded, or are companies being bought up and folded into bigger platforms?
  • Where would you fit, and why would someone switch to you?

If the map can't answer those, it is decoration.

How I would build one

Keep it simple. A spreadsheet is enough to start.

  1. List the companies. Start with the names you already know, then search the way a buyer would. Look at who shows up in comparisons, analyst roundups, conference sponsor lists and community threads. Stop when new searches mostly return names you already have.
  2. Pick a small set of capability areas. Ten is plenty. Use the words buyers use, not your own internal terms.
  3. For each company, record what it says it does, who it targets, when it started, and whether it is independent or has been acquired.
  4. Mark capabilities against each company, based on what it publicly offers. Be honest about how you did this. If it is a quick read of each company's site, say so.
  5. Note the date. Markets move. A map from six months ago may already be wrong.

Use only public information, and link to the source for anything you might want to check later.

Look for patterns, not just names

Once the data is in, step back and look at the shape of it.

  • Clusters. If most companies offer the same five things, you need those five just to be considered. They are not your reason to exist.
  • Gaps. A capability few companies offer might be your opening. Or it might be a feature buyers don't value. Talk to buyers before you decide which.
  • Buyer split. Sometimes two groups of companies look similar but sell to different people, such as security teams versus compliance teams. That split can matter more than any feature.
  • Consolidation. If a lot of companies in a space are being acquired, bigger platforms are absorbing that capability. A standalone product may struggle, or a focused one may be exactly what the leftover buyers want.

Each pattern is a question to test, not an answer.

Put it on one page

The full spreadsheet is for you. The one-page version is for your team, your advisors and anyone you want honest feedback from.

I like a simple chart that groups companies by category, with some measure of how broad each one is. Add a short list of what you think it means: the table stakes, the gaps, and where you want to play. People react to a picture much faster than to a table.

Show it to a few potential buyers. Ask which of these companies they have heard of, which they use, and what is missing. That conversation is often more useful than the map itself. It is the same thinking behind testing a product idea before building it.

What the map changes

A good map usually changes your plans in one of three ways.

  • You narrow. Instead of competing on everything, you pick one buyer or one capability where you can be clearly better.
  • You reposition. You find that what you planned to build is a feature in other products, so you build it as part of a bigger workflow instead.
  • You stop. The space is crowded, the buyers are happy and there's no gap worth the effort. That is a good outcome. You saved the months.

Any of those is better than finding out after launch.

Keep it current

Update the map when something big happens: a new entrant, an acquisition, a major feature launch. Put the date at the top. A map that is clearly dated is useful. One that looks current but isn't can mislead you.

The short version

  1. Map the market before you commit to building.
  2. List companies the way a buyer would find them.
  3. Mark a small set of capabilities, from public information, and say how.
  4. Look for clusters, gaps, buyer splits and consolidation.
  5. Put it on one page and show it to buyers.
  6. Let it narrow, reshape or stop the plan.
  7. Date it, and update it when the market moves.

I built a rough prototype of this idea for one market, the AI Governance and Security Landscape: an interactive map of companies you can filter, compare side by side and sort by when they started. Try the demo. It uses public information compiled in February 2026, so some of it will already be out of date.

How do you size up a market before you build in it today? If you have a method that works, email me.

#ProductStrategy #UserResearch #Founders