SKILL.md

---
name: market-research
description: Conduct comprehensive market research including competitive analysis, industry trends, customer profiling, and opportunity identification.
version: 1.0.0
author: OWL
tags: [research, market-analysis, competitive-intelligence, strategy]
---

# Market Research Skill

## Purpose
Conduct thorough market research to identify opportunities, understand competition, and inform business decisions.

## When to Use
- Evaluating a new market or niche
- Researching competitors
- Identifying customer pain points
- Validating a business idea
- Preparing for sales outreach

## How It Works

### Step 1: Define Research Questions
What do you need to know?
- Market size and growth rate
- Key competitors and their positioning
- Customer demographics and pain points
- Pricing benchmarks
- Trends and opportunities

### Step 2: Gather Data
Sources to check:
1. **Industry reports**: IBISWorld, Statista, Gartner
2. **Competitor websites**: Products, pricing, positioning
3. **Reviews**: G2, Trustpilot, Reddit, forums
4. **Social media**: LinkedIn, Twitter, industry groups
5. **Job postings**: Indeed, LinkedIn (reveals company priorities)
6. **Financial data**: Crunchbase, SEC filings, press releases

### Step 3: Analyze and Synthesize
Create a structured report:
1. **Market overview**: Size, growth, trends
2. **Competitive landscape**: Key players, positioning, strengths/weaknesses
3. **Customer profile**: Demographics, pain points, buying behavior
4. **Opportunity assessment**: Gaps, underserved segments, trends
5. **Recommendations**: Actionable next steps

## Output Format

```markdown
# Market Research Report: [Industry/Niche]

## Executive Summary
[2-3 sentence overview of key findings]

## Market Overview
- **Size**: $[X]B
- **Growth**: [X]% CAGR
- **Trends**: [Key trends]

## Competitive Landscape
| Competitor | Positioning | Strengths | Weaknesses | Price Range |
|------------|-------------|-----------|------------|-------------|
| [Name] | [Description] | [List] | [List] | $[X-$Y] |

## Customer Profile
- **Demographics**: [Age, location, income]
- **Pain points**: [List]
- **Buying behavior**: [Description]

## Opportunities
1. [Opportunity 1]
2. [Opportunity 2]
3. [Opportunity 3]

## Recommendations
1. [Actionable recommendation]
2. [Actionable recommendation]
```

## Tips
- Start with Google searches for "[industry] market size 2026"
- Check Reddit for unfiltered customer opinions
- Look at job postings to understand company priorities
- Use the "similar sites" tool to find competitors
- Check review sites for common complaints (opportunities)