FollowUp AI

Understanding how we track competitor signals that actually matter for product decisions.

Where Do We Collect Competitor Information From?

Jan 16, 2026kate@follwup.usViews: …

There are plenty of competitor analysis tools on the market. But tools that are truly built for Product Managers are still very rare. Most competitive intelligence tools are designed with Marketing in mind.

There are plenty of competitor analysis tools on the market. But tools that are truly built for Product Managers are still very rare.

Most competitive intelligence tools are designed with Marketing in mind. They focus on traffic, SEO, PPC, brand visibility, and market-level metrics.

That kind of data is useful. But it's not what PMs rely on when making product decisions.

What PMs Actually Care About When Looking at Competitors

For PMs, competitor analysis is not about market performance. It's about understanding product decisions.

Questions like:

  • What features did competitors ship recently?
  • Did they quietly remove or downplay any features?
  • Are they changing how they position their product?
  • What are users complaining about right now?
  • Where are users clearly unhappy, but no one has fixed it yet?

These signals tend to be:

  • constantly changing
  • spread across many places
  • mostly unstructured
  • hard to track in a consistent way

This is exactly the gap we're trying to fill.

What We Monitor Today

We don't monitor data just because it's easy to collect. We focus on signals that actually affect product decisions.

Right now, our Competitor module covers the following areas:

Strategic Insights

  • SWOT analysis
  • shifts in overall strategy
  • changes in product positioning

News & Releases

  • official announcements
  • product launches and updates

Features

  • new features
  • removed or deprecated features
  • changes in how features are positioned

Blogs

  • official blog posts
  • changes in product philosophy or direction

Roadmap

  • updates to public roadmaps
  • added, delayed, or removed initiatives

Newsletter

  • emails sent to users
  • hints about upcoming changes or priorities

User Insights

  • reviews from G2 and Capterra
  • real discussions and complaints from Reddit and other communities

Website Monitoring

  • changes to key pages (homepage, product pages, pricing pages)
  • pricing and plan updates
  • messaging and positioning changes

For PMs, a competitor's website isn't just marketing. It's often the clearest reflection of what the team is focusing on right now.

We don't just detect changes. We try to understand whether a change actually matters.

LinkedIn Posts

  • updates from official company accounts
  • posts from founders, PMs, and product leaders

How This Differs From Traditional Competitor Tools

Tools like Semrush, SimilarWeb, or Crunchbase are well known for a reason. They're great at what they're designed to do.

Their main audience is Marketing teams, and they focus on:

  • market and traffic analysis
  • SEO and PPC data
  • structured company information like funding or team size

Crunchbase, in particular, works more like a reference database.

PMs usually aren't asking, "How is this company doing in the market?"

They're asking, "What product choices are they making right now?"

That difference shapes everything we build.

Turning Signals Into Insights

All of these sources feed into one place. We review them regularly, connect the dots, and highlight what's important.

The goal is simple:

  • less time spent checking competitors
  • fewer scattered notes
  • clearer signals you can actually act on

Instead of digging through dozens of pages and comments, you start with a short summary of what changed and why it matters.

This Is Only Part of the Picture

Everything described above is only a part of our Competitor capabilities.

We're not trying to help teams "watch competitors" more closely. We want to help PMs:

  • notice meaningful changes earlier
  • spot shifts in user sentiment faster
  • turn external signals into real product decisions

For us, competitor analysis isn't a one-off task. It's an ongoing input into product thinking.

One Last Question for You

We also want to learn from how you work.

Where do you usually look to understand what users really think about a product?

  • Facebook?
  • X (Twitter)?
  • TikTok?
  • Instagram?
  • YouTube?

Different products rely on different sources. There's no single right answer.

If you're open to it, feel free to share your thoughts in our Feedback Portal. Your input will help shape what we monitor next.