This is Who You're Up Against

Pick your competitors very carefully.

Patrick Campbell bootstrapped ProfitWell to a $200 million exit. But, his first job out of school was an intelligence analyst with the U.S. National Security Agency.

He founded ProfitWell to help the ever-growing universe of subscription-based companies optimize their business. By plugging in to the backend of their financial dashboard, ProfitWell helped reduce cancellations and optimize pricing.

This was a big market opportunity. He wasn’t the first to market, but he was one of its most worthy competitors.

Using his training in intelligence, Patrick developed a competitive intel program within ProfitWell to track competitors in his space. Here’s how it worked;

1. Develop a list of your competitors’ customers (many of them will list these logos on their homepage.

2. Every quarter, send NPS score and product research surveys to those clients.

3. Track the results over time to uncover trends.

4. Interview former employees of competitors to learn about their processes and culture.

5. Talk with investors who are active in the space for why they went with or passed on funding the competitor.

6. Meet with customers that have churned off of the competitor’s service.

These are the stakes when you play in very big markets with ruthless competition. Your choices are to either set your boundaries up front and accept the outcomes, adopt & escalate these practices, or avoid the most cutthroat markets entirely.

Choose wisely.

(Listen to his whole explanation here.)

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