Your Competitor Isn't Who You Think

List your competitors. The companies that do what you do.

That list is probably wrong.

The Wrong Competitors

Founders obsess over direct competitors. Companies with similar features, similar pricing, similar positioning.

But customers rarely compare you to those companies. They're comparing you to something else entirely.

"Your real competition is whatever customers do instead of using you."

This insight, often attributed to Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt, has been validated repeatedly. People don't buy products. They hire them to do jobs. The competition is whatever else gets that job done.

What Customers Actually Compare

For Vox Animus, the direct competitors might seem like other brand strategy tools.

But customers aren't comparing brand tools. They're comparing:

- Doing nothing: Ship without brand work and hope it works out - Hiring a branding agency: $15,000+ and weeks of meetings - Using ChatGPT: Prompt "write me a brand" and get generic content - Copying competitors: Just do what Linear or Notion did - Hiring a freelancer: Post on Fiverr, hope for the best

These aren't products. They're behaviors. They're the status quo.

"The status quo is always your toughest competitor. Inertia beats everything."

Why This Matters

If you position against the wrong competitors, your messaging misses.

"We're better than [Other Brand Tool]" means nothing to someone who wasn't considering brand tools at all. They were going to skip the work entirely.

"We turn your product intent into something enforceable, so you don't have to hire an agency or just wing it" — that speaks to their actual decision.

Clay Christensen's Jobs To Be Done framework explains this: "Customers don't compare products to products. They compare your product to whatever they currently do to solve the problem."

If their current solution is "do nothing," you're not competing with product competitors. You're competing with inertia.

The Replacement Question

Ask this question: "What would people do if my product didn't exist?"

Not what tool would they use. What would they do?

The answer reveals your real competition.

If the answer is "nothing": You're competing against apathy. Your marketing needs to convince people the problem is worth solving.

If the answer is "hire someone": You're competing against a service. Your marketing needs to show why a tool is better than a person.

If the answer is "use a free alternative": You're competing against price. Your marketing needs to show why paying is worth it.

If the answer is "cobble together multiple tools": You're competing against fragmentation. Your marketing needs to show why integration matters.

"The replacement question reveals what you're actually selling."

Positioning Against the Real Alternative

Once you know the real competition, position against it.

Vox Animus positions against different alternatives with different messages:

Against doing nothing: "Your product was intentional. Your brand should be too."

Against agencies: "No meetings. No revisions. No waiting. $500, not $15,000."

Against ChatGPT: "Structured output, not word salad. Copy-paste prompts, not generic advice."

Each message addresses a different behavior. Different visitors need different messages.

Superhuman positions against Gmail (the behavioral default) more than against Hey (the adjacent competitor). "Make email the fastest experience on your desktop" speaks to Gmail users, not Hey users.

The Competitive Landscape Map

Draw this on paper:

1. List what people do instead of using you (behaviors, not products) 2. For each alternative, note the pros and cons 3. Identify where you win against each alternative

Position where you win. Don't compete where you lose.

If agencies beat you on quality, don't claim quality. Claim speed. Claim price. Claim independence.

April Dunford recommends this exercise in Obviously Awesome: "Make a list of all the ways a customer could solve their problem. Your product is just one option on that list. Position against the most common alternative, not the most similar one."

Stop Watching, Start Talking

Checking competitor websites is easy. Understanding what customers actually do is harder.

Talk to people who didn't buy. Ask what they did instead. That's your real competitive intelligence.

"Your competitors aren't the companies on your list. They're the behaviors you need to change."

When you understand the behavior, you understand the message that changes it.

---

Ready to position against your real competitors? Try the Vox Animus demo to build your Brand Schema with proper positioning.