market-landscape-scan

# 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

- **Governing protocol:** this skill honors the [`autonomous-investigation`](../autonomous-investigation/SKILL.md)
  contract — question budget of 3, search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, Just Enough
  Mode, stable schema, 4-option Final Step.
- **Discipline mix:** primarily OSINT (analyst and review coverage, press, communities) with
  GEOINT/DEMOINT for segment reality-checks and FININT for funding signals — see
  [`intelligence-collection-disciplines`](../intelligence-collection-disciplines/SKILL.md).
- **Buyer-view segmentation.** Map the market as *buyers* experience it, not as vendors or analysts
  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.
- **Non-consumption is a competitor.** "They use spreadsheets" belongs on the player map. Treating
  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.
- **The dead-zone test.** Every whitespace claim must survive the question *"or is it a dead zone?"*
  Empty space is either opportunity or evidence of no demand; the honest counter-reading is mandatory,
  not optional.
- **Do-not-invent list (this domain's fabrication risks):** companies, products, funding rounds,
  market share, growth rates, customer claims.

## Application

1. **Credit inline context**, then ask only the unanswered questions (max 3):
   1. What market or problem space, in your words?
   2. What decision should this landscape support?
   3. Any boundary — geography, buyer size, price band?
   If unanswered, proceed with labeled assumptions.
2. **Show the 3-bullet search plan** — what you'll search, source types (analyst and review sites,
   company and pricing pages, funding databases, industry press, trade bodies, practitioner
   communities), and how facts will be separated from inference. Continue unless revised.
3. **Research in Just Enough Mode** and emit the schema below *exactly* — it is the stable base
   that quarterly re-scans diff against.

### 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?
- **3** implications for the decision named in Scope
- **2** players to deep-dive next
- **3** assumptions to validate
Each bullet: label, confidence, URL where relevant.
~~~

A copy/paste fill-in version of this schema, with quality checks, lives in [`template.md`](template.md).

### Final Step (offer exactly 4 options)

1. Run [`competitive-research-snapshot`](../competitive-research-snapshot/SKILL.md) on the deep-dive players
2. Run [`tam-sam-som-calculator`](../tam-sam-som-calculator/SKILL.md) sizing on the most promising segment
3. Draft a positioning hypothesis against this landscape ([`positioning-statement`](../positioning-statement/SKILL.md))
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**
> ([community thread, Jun 2026](https://example.com/