Market Research Skill

When to Use

• During Phase 0 (Idea) → Market Research, Competitor Analysis, Opportunity Mapping
• During Phase 1 (Validation) → Demand Testing
• Any time you need structured intelligence about a market, niche, or competitor

Tools Required

Tool	Purpose
firecrawl_search	Web search for market data, trends, competitors
firecrawl_scrape	Extract structured data from specific pages
firecrawl_extract	Pull pricing, features, positioning from competitor sites
firecrawl_map	Discover all pages on a competitor's site

Instructions

1. Define Research Scope

Before starting any research, clarify with the user:

• Market/Industry: What space are we researching?
• Geography: Global, US, EU, LATAM, specific country?
• Depth: Quick scan (30 min) or deep dive (2+ hours)?
• Focus: TAM estimation, competitor landscape, trend signals, or all three?

2. TAM/SAM/SOM Estimation

Execute these searches in parallel:

firecrawl_search: "{industry} market size 2024 2025 report"
firecrawl_search: "{industry} SaaS revenue growth forecast"
firecrawl_search: "{niche} total addressable market"

Structure the output as:

Metric	Value	Source	Confidence
TAM	$X B	{source}	High/Med/Low
SAM	$X M	{source}	High/Med/Low
SOM	$X M	{source}	High/Med/Low

3. Competitor Landscape

For each competitor identified:

firecrawl_extract:
  urls: ["{competitor_url}"]
  prompt: "Extract: company name, tagline, pricing tiers, key features, target audience, tech stack indicators"
  schema: {
    name: string,
    tagline: string,
    pricing: [{ tier: string, price: string, features: [string] }],
    target_audience: string,
    key_features: [string]
  }

Compile into a comparison matrix:

Feature	Competitor A	Competitor B	Competitor C	Our Opportunity

4. Trend Analysis

Search for:

firecrawl_search: "{industry} trends 2025 2026"
firecrawl_search: "{niche} emerging technology"
firecrawl_search: "{industry} pain points users complain"

Categorize trends as:

• Tailwinds (market forces working in our favor)
• Headwinds (forces working against us)
• Wildcards (unpredictable but high-impact)

5. Output Format

Save all research to the relevant PLAYBOOK.md directory as RESEARCH.md with:

1. Executive Summary (3 sentences max)
2. TAM/SAM/SOM table
3. Competitor matrix
4. Trend analysis (tailwinds/headwinds/wildcards)
5. Key insight + recommended action
6. Sources list with URLs

Quality Gates

• Minimum 3 independent sources for any TAM claim
• Competitor data must be scraped, not assumed
• All monetary values must include year and currency
• Trends must be dated (no stale 2022 data presented as current)