Competitive proof
that wins deals,
not debates.

We focus each sprint on your top 3 head-to-head threats — the competitors that show up most often in late-stage deals and evaluation shortlists. Three is the ceiling for a single 10-day sprint because the forensic depth matters more than breadth: we test every public claim against verifiable evidence, and doing that rigorously across more than three vendors would dilute the output quality. If you have a wider competitive field, follow-on sprints can cover the next tier. Many clients run an initial sprint against their primary three, then queue a second sprint the following quarter to address emerging or adjacent competitors. The result is a living competitive library that grows with each engagement rather than a shallow snapshot of too many players.

A full-time competitive intelligence analyst costs $80–120K per year in base salary alone, plus 3–6 months of ramp time before they produce usable output. You also absorb tooling costs, management overhead, and the risk that the hire doesn’t work out. A Competitive Proof Sprint delivers the same category of deployable assets — a Reality vs. Rhetoric Matrix, three sales battlecards, a positioning brief, and a messaging kit — in 10 business days at a fraction of the annual cost. There is no recruiting timeline, no onboarding period, and no ongoing headcount commitment. For teams that need competitive intelligence now rather than six months from now, a sprint provides an immediate operational uplift while you evaluate whether a permanent hire makes sense.

The sprint starts with a 45-minute kickoff call where we align on your top 3 competitor names, your primary sales motion (PLG, sales-led, or enterprise), and the deal stages where competitor pressure is highest. You will also share access to any existing win/loss data, CRM notes, or competitive materials you already have. Optionally, 3–5 anonymized call recordings or a short list of objections your reps hear most often accelerate the research phase. Beyond that initial input, we handle everything: the five-layer forensic audit, the evidence triangulation, the battlecard drafting, and the final enablement session. Most clients spend fewer than two hours of their own time across the entire 10-day engagement.

Yes. On the 15-minute fit call we can walk you through a redacted sample of the Reality vs. Rhetoric Matrix so you can see the format, the level of evidence depth, and the verdict methodology before committing. We also publish detailed case studies on our website that illustrate the analytical framework and the kind of insights each sprint surfaces. These case studies cover scenarios like identity security messaging gaps, procurement-stage friction, and the cost of manual competitive research, so you can evaluate whether the methodology fits your competitive landscape. If you prefer a written sample over a call, email us and we will send a redacted extract directly.

You own everything produced during the sprint outright. The Notion or Google Drive repository — containing the matrix, battlecards, positioning brief, messaging kit, and every source screenshot and profile — is yours permanently with no recurring fees or license restrictions. The recorded 60-minute enablement session is also yours to share internally with new hires, adjacent teams, or leadership. Follow-on sprints are available on a quarterly basis as your competitive landscape evolves. Repeat engagements are faster because the evidence baseline, source library, and competitor profiles are already built. Many clients find that quarterly re-runs keep their sales team armed with current proof rather than stale slides.

Yes. Every engagement begins with a mutual non-disclosure agreement before any briefing call, data exchange, or competitor discussion takes place. We treat your competitive strategy, internal win/loss data, and deal-stage intelligence as strictly confidential. The NDA covers both directions: your proprietary information is protected, and our research methodology and tooling remain confidential as well. If your legal team has a preferred NDA template, we are happy to review and sign it. If not, we provide a standard mutual NDA that most legal teams approve within 24 hours. No research begins until the NDA is fully executed by both parties.

All research in a Competitive Proof Sprint is sourced exclusively from publicly available information. That includes company websites, product documentation, changelogs, ad libraries, G2 and Gartner Peer Insights reviews, job postings, status pages, trust centers, and press releases. We never access proprietary systems, scrape behind login walls, impersonate customers, or engage in any form of social engineering. Our published ethics policy outlines every boundary we observe. The evidence repository delivered at the end of each sprint includes a source URL, capture date, and access method for every data point, so your legal and compliance teams can independently verify that every claim in the matrix traces back to a legitimate public source.

The sprint fee reflects the density of specialized work compressed into 10 business days: a five-layer forensic audit across three competitors, evidence triangulation against public sources, three individually drafted battlecards, a positioning brief, a full messaging kit, and a 60-minute recorded enablement session. A comparable scope from a strategy consultancy would take 6–8 weeks and cost $25,000–50,000. A full-time competitive analyst costs $80–120K per year before producing deployable output. At $4,500 with a 50/50 payment split and a money-back guarantee tied to specific deliverable thresholds, the sprint is designed to be the lowest-risk way to get production-grade competitive intelligence into your sales team’s hands within two weeks.

Yes. Many of our clients run sprints on a quarterly cadence to catch new competitor claims, product launches, pricing changes, and messaging shifts as they happen. Repeat sprints are meaningfully faster than a first engagement because the competitor baseline, evidence library, and source profiles are already built from the previous round. Each quarterly update focuses on what has changed since the last sprint: new feature announcements, updated ad copy, revised trust center claims, fresh review sentiment, and any new competitors entering your evaluation shortlists. The result is a living competitive intelligence system that stays current rather than a one-time snapshot that decays within weeks of delivery.