Predict what competitors could do next and plan our response
War-games likely competitor moves from what you know about them, rates each threat, and prepares responses before it happens.
The prompt
Help me anticipate what our competitors could do next, and prepare our response.
Our business and position: [WHAT WE SELL, OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES, KEY CUSTOMERS]
Main competitors: [NAMES OR TYPES]
What we know about each: [RECENT MOVES, PRICING, FUNDING, HIRING, PRODUCT LAUNCHES, PARTNERSHIPS, LEADERSHIP CHANGES, WHAT CUSTOMERS SAY]
Our upcoming plans: [MOVES WE'RE CONSIDERING, which they might react to]
For each competitor:
1. Read their likely goals and constraints from the evidence (growth vs. profit, where they're investing, what they can't easily change).
2. List their 2-3 most plausible next moves over the next 6-18 months, such as pricing, product, new segment, acquisition, partnership, or marketing push. Include how they might react to our planned moves.
3. Rate each move: likelihood, impact on us, and timing.
Then:
4. For the 3-5 moves that matter most, prepare a response playbook: early warning signs, our best response, what we'd avoid doing, and who owns monitoring.
5. Suggest pre-emptive steps worth taking now.
Return:
1. A table: Competitor | Likely move | Evidence | Likelihood | Impact on us | Timing | Early signal.
2. Response playbooks for the top moves.
3. Pre-emptive actions.
4. Intelligence gaps: what we should find out, and legitimate public sources to watch.
Rules: separate facts I gave you from inference; never present a predicted move as fact. Don't invent competitor figures; mark them [VERIFY]. Use only legal, ethical sources of competitor information.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Business Strategy & Startups prompts
What to fill in
- WHAT WE SELL, OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES, KEY CUSTOMERS
- NAMES OR TYPES
- MOVES WE'RE CONSIDERING, which they might react to
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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