# 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.

- Topic: Business Strategy & Startups
- Framework: RTF
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Strategy, Finance, Plan, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/predict-what-competitors-could-do-next-and-plan-our-response

## Prompt

```text
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.
```

## 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

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.