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- This prompt turns competitor reviews into a strategy
This prompt turns competitor reviews into a strategy
The laziest way to find a market gap
I spend a lot of time on r/ChatGPTPromptGenius. Most of it is noise. But every once in a while someone posts something that makes me stop scrolling.
This was one of those.
A user called u/promptoptimizr built a prompt that turns raw competitor reviews into a structured gap analysis. Not a feature comparison. Not a vague summary. An actual breakdown of where the market has holes, backed by evidence from real customer frustrations.
Here's how it works and why it's worth saving.
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What the Prompt Does
You paste in competitor reviews, product descriptions, or feature lists. The AI comes back with four things:
An executive summary of the biggest gap
Three or more unmet needs, each with evidence and an implied solution
Market gaps tied to those needs
Actionable recommendations for product or feature development
The whole thing runs on one key constraint: "implied desired outcome."
Without it, you get a list of complaints. With it, the AI thinks through what customers actually want. Not just what bugs them.
That's the difference between "users hate the onboarding" and "users want to reach their first win in under 5 minutes without watching a tutorial."
One reframes the problem. The other hands you a spec.
Why This Prompt Works Better Than "Analyze My Competitors"
A few design choices make it reliable.
Role assignment sets the frame. The prompt defines the AI as an expert market analyst. Not a general assistant. That single line changes how the model approaches every input you give it.
Constraints block the lazy path. There's an explicit rule: don't summarize features. Focus on customer experience and desired outcomes. Without this, most models default to listing what competitors offer. This prompt forces the model past that.
Structured output keeps it useful. The output format has named sections (executive summary, unmet needs, market gaps, recommendations). You can drop the results straight into a product doc or pitch deck without reformatting anything.
Minimum gap count stops early exits. The prompt requires at least 3 distinct gaps. Without that floor, models tend to find one thing and call it done.
One more thing: the prompt author notes that GPT-3.5 struggles with this. Claude and GPT-4o handle it well. The requirement to identify distinct gaps across a large batch of input needs a model that can reason across context, not just summarize the loudest complaint.
How to Get the Best Results
Three tips from the original post and my own testing:
Label your data. Add "Reviews for Competitor X:" before each batch. Gives the AI cleaner signal to work with.
Use at least 20 reviews. Fewer than that and the model pattern-matches on too small a sample. You want themes to emerge naturally, not because one frustrated reviewer dominated the batch.
Mix your sources. App store reviews, G2, Reddit threads, Amazon. Different platforms surface different frustrations. The more varied the input, the better the gaps.
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The Full Prompt
Here's the full prompt from the original post, ready to copy:
ROLE
You are an expert market analyst and product strategist.
TASK
Analyze the provided competitor information (product descriptions, customer reviews, feature lists) to identify unmet customer needs, pain points, and potential market gaps. Your goal is to synthesize this information into actionable insights for a new product or feature development.
CONSTRAINTS
1. Focus on identifying unmet needs and customer frustrations that current offerings fail to address.
2. Do NOT simply summarize the competitor's features. Focus on the customer's experience and desired outcomes.
3. Identify at least 3 distinct market gaps or unmet needs.
4. Keep insights concise and actionable.
5. Do not include any self-promotional or marketing language.
INPUT DATA
[PASTE COMPETITOR INFORMATION HERE - e.g., customer reviews, product descriptions, feature comparisons]
OUTPUT FORMAT
Present your findings as a structured markdown document with the following sections:
Executive Summary
A brief (1-2 sentence) overview of the primary market gap identified.
Key Unmet Needs & Pain Points
• [Unmet Need/Pain Point 1]: Description of the need/pain point. Evidence from the input data (brief quotes or summaries). Implied desired outcome or feature.
• [Unmet Need/Pain Point 2]: Description of the need/pain point. Evidence from the input data. Implied desired outcome or feature.
• [Unmet Need/Pain Point 3]: Description of the need/pain point. Evidence from the input data. Implied desired outcome or feature.
Potential Market Gaps
• [Market Gap 1]: Description of the gap. How it relates to the unmet needs above. Potential product/feature implications.
• [Market Gap 2]: Description of the gap. How it relates to the unmet needs above. Potential product/feature implications.
Actionable Recommendations
Brief, bulleted suggestions for product development or strategy based on the analysis.Credit to promptoptimizr
When to Use This
Building a new product and doing pre-launch competitive research
Writing a positioning doc and trying to find your real differentiator
Pitching investors and need a concrete "why us" story backed by evidence
Running a content strategy and looking for angles competitors are missing
Copy the prompt. Open Claude or ChatGPT. Grab 20+ reviews for a competitor in your space from G2, app stores, Reddit, or Amazon. Paste them in.
The output will surprise you.
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