Before you start
- The target company's name (and ideally their primary website URL)
- A LinkedIn account (free tier works for most steps)
- Access to one of: Crunchbase, PitchBook, or G2 - free tiers are sufficient
- 30-60 minutes for a thorough discovery pass
The playbook
8 steps
Pull the LinkedIn 'Similar pages' panel on the company profile
Open the company's LinkedIn page (linkedin.com/company/<name>). The right-side panel labeled 'Pages people also viewed' or 'Similar pages' surfaces 5-10 companies LinkedIn's algorithm associates with the target - usually based on follower overlap and viewer-behavior correlation. These are brand-level competitor candidates, not just website competitors. Log them with 'source: linkedin-similar-pages'.
Expected outcome
5-10 LinkedIn-associated companies logged in tracker.
Search Crunchbase for 'Competitors' on the company profile
Crunchbase explicitly lists competitors on most company profiles (free tier shows 3-5; paid shows more). Crunchbase's competitor data is curated from funding analyst reports, investor decks, and company self-disclosure - signal that's brand-level and strategic, not just web-traffic-overlap. Log these with 'source: crunchbase-competitor-graph'.
Expected outcome
3-5 Crunchbase-listed competitors captured.
Use G2 / Capterra category pages to find competitors in the same software bucket
If the company sells software, G2 and Capterra categorize them. Open the category page and capture every vendor in the same bucket. G2's 'Compare' feature also surfaces vendors customers regularly evaluate side-by-side. These are explicit competitors - customers are actively comparing them in purchase decisions.
Expected outcome
Full category vendor list captured; G2 comparison-pair data logged where available.
Check Glassdoor and LinkedIn for 'where employees came from' patterns
Open the target company's LinkedIn employees page → filter for 'past company'. The top 10-15 prior employers are companies the target hires from - usually direct competitors (same talent pool, same skill profile) or adjacent ones (logical career-progression sources). Mirror this with 'where employees go after' - shows where the target loses talent to, which is also competitive signal.
TipThe talent-flow graph is one of the strongest competitive signals available because companies hire from and lose talent to actual competitors, not theoretical ones.Expected outcome
Top 10 'past employer' companies and top 10 'next employer' companies logged.
Mine the target's customer logo wall + case studies for shared-customer competitors
If the target publishes customer logos or case studies, search 'site:<competitor>.com <shared customer name>' for each customer. Brands appearing on both vendor sites are competing for the same accounts. Shared-customer evidence is the strongest possible competitive signal - same buyer, same evaluation, both vendors made it through.
Expected outcome
Shared-customer matrix - which competitors compete for the same target accounts.
Run a Google search for '<target company> vs' and 'alternatives to <target>'
The first 20 results expose the comparison ecosystem: listicles, review sites, comparison pages, Reddit threads. The brands that appear repeatedly as the 'vs' candidate or alternative are competitors customers actively consider. This step catches newer entrants and category specialists that wider-aperture tools miss.
# Useful search operators: # "<company> vs" # "alternatives to <company>" # "<company> competitors" # site:reddit.com <company> alternative # site:g2.com <company> # site:capterra.com <company>Expected outcome
20-30 brand-mention hits captured; recurring brands logged.
Cross-reference funding/M&A graphs via Crunchbase or PitchBook
Companies funded by the same investors are often competitive set candidates - VCs cluster bets in categories. Crunchbase 'investors' tab on the target → see their other portfolio investments. PitchBook surfaces M&A-adjacent companies. The funding graph reveals strategic-competitor candidates that customer-facing signals miss.
Expected outcome
Funding-graph competitors logged - portfolio companies of the target's investors, M&A-adjacent peers.
Synthesize into a tiered competitive set with strategic-positioning context
Three tiers + a positioning note for each. **Tier 1 (head-to-head)**: 3+ discovery methods + shared customers. **Tier 2 (situational)**: 2 methods OR ecosystem-adjacent but different segment. **Tier 3 (peripheral)**: 1 method. For each Tier 1 competitor, add a one-line positioning note: 'beats us on enterprise sales' or 'undercuts our price by 30%'. Tiering + positioning notes is what makes the list strategically useful.
Expected outcome
5-12 competitors tiered with positioning notes; Tier 1 ready for ongoing monitoring.
Shuttergen
Find the companies. Then beat them in market.
Discovery surfaces the competitive set. Shuttergen runs continuous creative audits against the companies you discover - tracking their ads, their angles, their winners - so you can ship variants that compete on the same battleground.
Pitfalls
What goes wrong
Confusing brand competitors with website competitors
A company can have website competitors (same SEO/PPC battles) that aren't brand competitors (different buyer, different segment). Brand-level discovery uses different signals - hiring, funding, shared customers, ecosystem position - and produces a different list than URL-based discovery.
Trusting only customer-facing competitor lists
G2 and review sites only show competitors customers are vocal about. Internal-strategic competitors (companies pivoting toward your category, well-funded stealth entrants) won't appear. Funding graphs and hiring patterns catch them.
Ignoring the talent-flow signal
Where employees come from and go to is one of the most reliable competitive signals - and one of the most underused. Companies hire from real competitors, not theoretical ones. Always pull the LinkedIn employee history view.
Treating category leaders as competitors by default
The biggest brand in the category may target a different segment, price point, or geography. Discovery is about who competes for YOUR customers, not who has the biggest logo. Validate competitor status with shared-customer or shared-buyer evidence.
Letting the competitive set go stale
Brand-level competitive sets shift every 6-12 months as funding rounds close, M&A happens, and positioning evolves. Re-run discovery quarterly; the list is a snapshot, not a permanent record.
Limits
When this playbook won't work
- Pre-revenue stealth companies with no LinkedIn/web footprint - signals don't exist yet
- Mature commodity categories where 100+ companies cluster on identical positioning
- Family-owned or PE-rolled-up companies that don't disclose customer or funding data
- Highly regulated industries (defense, certain pharma) where competitive disclosure is restricted
- Pure service businesses with no software or product to compare via G2/Capterra
Why brand-level competitor discovery is structurally different
Website-level competitor discovery uses URL signals - traffic overlap, keyword overlap, paid-search overlap. It's mature, well-tooled, and produces a list of domains competing for similar audiences. It's necessary but insufficient.
Brand-level competitor discovery uses company signals - hiring flow, funding graphs, customer overlap, ecosystem position. These signals reveal competitive relationships that website-level discovery misses: companies pivoting into your category, well-funded entrants without yet-large web footprints, B2B competitors who win deals you also win.
The two approaches catch different categories of competitor. Website-level catches SEO/PPC/creative competitors. Brand-level catches business-model competitors and strategic threats. A company-level discovery effort needs both lenses; relying on one produces a partial competitive picture.
Find the companies. Then beat them in market. Discovery surfaces the competitive set. Shuttergen runs continuous creative audits against the companies you discover - tracking their ads, their angles, their winners - so you can ship variants that compete on the same battleground.
What to do with the company-level competitor list
The list informs three downstream workstreams. Strategic (positioning, pricing, segment selection). Operational (sales battle cards, win/loss analysis, account targeting). Marketing (creative audits, content gap analysis, paid-strategy benchmarking). Each workstream uses the same competitor list but extracts different intelligence.
Tier 1 competitors get the deepest treatment. Quarterly tear-downs of their pricing, packaging, positioning, GTM. Weekly creative/content monitoring. Win/loss analysis on every deal that touches them. The investment is proportionate to the strategic threat.
The hiring-flow signal compounds over time. Tracking 'where employees go' for 12-24 months reveals strategic shifts - if 5 of your AEs leave to a competitor in 6 months, that competitor has gone from peripheral to strategic threat. Track it monthly.
Internal: how to find competitors of a website, find competitors, competitor monitoring tools, competitive analysis software.
FAQ
Frequently asked
What's the fastest way to find competitors of a company?
Can I find company competitors without paid tools?
How do I find competitors of a private company with no public data?
What's the difference between brand and website competitors?
How many company-level competitors should I track?
How often should I refresh company-level competitor research?
Should I include indirect competitors (different product, same buyer problem)?
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Find the companies. Then beat them in market.
Discovery surfaces the competitive set. Shuttergen runs continuous creative audits against the companies you discover - tracking their ads, their angles, their winners - so you can ship variants that compete on the same battleground.