You’ve got a great idea and you’re ready to introduce it to the world. But wait! Someone else might have had a similar idea. Knowing who your competition is critical to your project’s success for four key reasons:

• It will give you insight into how to market and promote your product when you think about it in the context of how others are marketing similar solutions.
• It will help you understand how much competition you’ll have to face when you introduce your project. Are there already well-established solutions that solve the same problem?
• It may give you some ideas for further developing your solution. What aren’t your competitors offering in terms of features or services that you can focus on?
• It will give you the information you need to think about what makes your solution unique. How can you differentiate yourself and show why your solution is the right one to choose?

That last reason brings us directly to the question we’ll be asking you on your Ingenious+ application:

What is currently being done to address this problem or similar problems in your community or elsewhere? How does your project differ from existing solutions?

Here are our suggested tips for answering this question:

1. Think about the terms your audience might use if they were searching the internet for your solution. Now put those terms into Google and see what competitors come up. It can be helpful to add “near me” to the end of the search term to find local offerings.
2. Go analog! Ask friends and family if they know of any similar solutions. Check out local business directories and your Chamber of Commerce to see if there are similar business in your area.
3. Pick 3 competitors you want to analyze and download our worksheet to guide your analysis.

Once you’ve explored the competition, you’ll be ready to tell us what makes your project unique and different.

Good luck!