Map your product's competitive positioning on a Kiviat chart
Your competitive analysis is a wall of feature checkmarks that doesn't tell a story. A Kiviat (spider) chart on 6-8 axes makes the shape of your advantage visible in one frame. This prompt picks the axes buyers actually decide on, scores them with evidence, and produces the narrative to go with the chart.
Kiviat Charts: Making the Shape of Your Advantage Visible
Feature-checkmark competitive grids reward completeness, not differentiation — every vendor ends up with 80% of the checks and the buyer picks on price. April Dunford's positioning work and Mind the Product's guidance on positioning both converge on the same finding: buyers remember shape, not coverage. A Kiviat chart forces a visual representation of where you spike and where you are deliberately weak, which turns positioning from a list into a story. Ben Horowitz's a16z perspective on category creation treats spike-shaped positioning as a necessary condition for defensibility.
How the Map your product's competitive positioning on a Kiviat chart Prompt Works
The prompt gates axis selection on whether the axis appears in actual buyer language (not internal feature language), forces 1-5 scoring with an evidence source column, and produces a 100-word narrative that names both the spike and one honest weakness. The weakness is the forcing function — a chart where you are 4-5 on everything reads as marketing, not analysis.
When to Use It
- A board or sales team is asking for a clearer competitive story.
- Your win rate against a specific competitor is dropping.
- You are launching in a new segment and need a positioning reset.
- RFPs are asking you to fill out feature grids and you want to reframe.
- A new entrant is confusing your category narrative.
Common Pitfalls
- Picking axes only you care about. If buyers do not say the axis name during evaluation calls, it does not belong on the chart.
- Scoring yourself 4-5 everywhere. A flat high shape is indistinguishable from marketing. Force an honest 2 somewhere.
- Skipping the evidence column. G2 reviews, benchmark tests, and buyer calls are evidence. "Our sales team says so" is not.
Sources
- Mind the Product — Mind the Product
- Product Strategy Overview — Silicon Valley Product Group
- The Product Strategy Stack — Reforge
- First Round Review — First Round
Sources
- Mind the Product — Mind the Product
- Product Strategy Overview — Silicon Valley Product Group
- The Product Strategy Stack — Reforge
- First Round Review — First Round
Prompt details
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