The droid that runs competitive intelligence

Competitors, watched while you sleep.

A droid that keeps tabs on the competition so the team doesn’t have to: it sweeps competitor sites, pricing pages, changelogs and the news on a schedule, writes what changed into a living battlecard, and posts a short “what it means for us” note the moment something material moves — looping in a human only when a change is a real threat or opportunity.

Does: Tracks rivals, briefs the team
Where: Series-A SaaS, ~8-person marketing & product
Reaches people on: Slack, email
Works inside: The web, Airtable, Slack
Runs: Daily sweep + on every change

01The situation

Watching competitors is worth it daily, which is why it never gets done.

Keeping tabs on the competition was always someone’s side-of-desk job — checked when there was time, which was never. So the battlecards went stale, a rival’s pricing change went unnoticed for a month, and the team found out about a competitor’s launch from a prospect on a sales call instead of from their own research.

The information was all public; the problem was that watching it, every day, across a dozen competitors, is relentless and dull. It needed doing constantly to be worth anything, and that was exactly the kind of work that kept losing to whatever was on fire that week.

02How it works

How the droid took it on.

Rather than hope someone remembers to check, the team handed the watch over. Every morning the droid sweeps every competitor, researches whatever changed, keeps the battlecard current, and posts the implication — looping in a human only when a move is genuinely strategic.

TASK#312Competitive intelligencestanding

trigger: Every morning at 6:00, a full competitor sweep
also: Any material change, plus a Friday digest
scope: ~12 tracked competitors · sites, pricing, changelogs, news
runs as: A contained droid action per sweep or change
memory: A snapshot per competitor, so it only flags what's new

Set up once, in plain language: “watch these competitors, tell me what actually changes, keep the battlecards current, and only pull me in when something's a real threat.” The droid turned that into a standing job, the competitive analyst a small team never had the headcount for.

FIG. 1The durable task, exactly as it exists in the runtime.

Every sweep trips the same loop:

01Sweep fires6:00am, daily
02Droid wakesJust for the sweep
03Crawls rivals + reads memorySites, pricing, changelogs, news
04Diffs the snapshotWhat actually changed
05Updates the battlecardAirtable, dated + sourced
06Material?Noise → log it · Notable → post the take · Strategic → loop in a human
07Posts to #competitiveThe “what it means” note

FIG. 2The loop each run walks.

03Ongoing handling

How it ran, move after move.

Here’s a week of competitive moves as it actually unfolded, sweep by sweep, down to how it reached for each tool. Only the one strategic launch ever needed a person.

Isometric competitive-intelligence scene: a radar scope, a two-column comparison battlecard, a magnifying glass over a pricing grid, and a trend chart

See it in action

One week, move by move.

The morning sweeps, the changes they catch, and the odd question land on the left. Watch the droid pick up each one and work it end to end across the web, the battlecard and Slack, bringing in a human only for the move that warrants it.

ResearchOn my morning sweep I walk every competitor's site, pricing page, changelog and recent news, and diff each against the snapshot I keep.trigger: 6:00am → crawl(rivals) + diff(snapshot)
ResearchRival A shipped something overnight, a new “bulk import” in their changelog. I read it and work out what it actually is.detect(changelog Δ) → research(feature)
AirtableI update their row in the battlecard: feature added, dated, with a link to the source.action: update(tracker, RivalA.features)
SlackThen I post a short note to #competitive: what changed, and what it means for us.action: post(#competitive, what_it_means)

Rival A shipped “bulk import” this morning (changelog linked). It closes a gap customers ask us about too, so it's logged on their battlecard. Worth scoping; not urgent.

The result

What changed, by the numbers.

Days → hoursto know a competitor moved

Refreshed dailybattlecards updated on the morning run

~1 in 10moves that needed a human, with the rest logged quietly

Logged on publishmoves picked up as they go out, not after a call

An illustrative workflow built from real product mechanics. The connected apps, the schedules and the run handling are how a droid actually works; the companies, the people and the figures are composites rather than a customer's numbers.

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Workflow brief

I run product marketing at a small SaaS company, and keeping tabs on competitors is always the job that loses. Someone checks their sites and pricing when there's time, which is never, so our battlecards go stale, we miss pricing changes for weeks, and we find out about launches from prospects on sales calls instead of our own research. It's all public information; the problem is that watching a dozen competitors every single day is relentless and dull.

Own competitive intelligence. Apps/channels: the web (competitor sites, pricing pages, changelogs, news), Airtable (a living battlecard, one row per competitor: features, pricing, positioning, sources), Slack #competitive (the running feed), Gmail (a weekly digest to the wider team).

Run a full sweep every morning, react to material changes as they happen, and send a digest every Friday. On each sweep:
1. Visit every competitor's site, pricing page, changelog and recent news, and diff each against the snapshot you keep.
2. When something changed, research it to understand what it actually is: a feature, a pricing move, a launch, funding, or just noise.
3. Update that competitor's row in the battlecard, dated and with a link to the source.
4. Post a short "what it means for us" note to #competitive covering what changed and the implication for sales or product.

Use judgment on what reaches a person: log routine changes quietly, post a take on notable ones, and for a genuinely strategic move, like a rival entering our core segment, draft a battlecard update and a suggested response and pull in the head of marketing, but never publish anything externally. Keep a snapshot per competitor so you only ever flag what's genuinely new.

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