CI without first-hand insight is just reaction.
We often think we’re tracking competitors — but what if all we’re doing is repeating what they want us to hear?
The quality of competitive research depends not just on what we analyze, but where the data comes from. Let’s talk about the underestimated role of first-hand insight in CI.
Most teams rely on second-hand signals
When teams say they’re “doing competitive research,” it usually means:
Checking competitors’ websites
Browsing G2, Capterra, or review sites
Reading TechCrunch or press releases
These are all useful. But they’re also heavily filtered.
They reflect the narrative that competitors want the world to believe — not what’s happening behind the scenes.
Especially on review platforms, positive bias is common. Incentivized reviews, marketing-led product updates, or polished customer stories can skew reality. And building strategy off that can lead to shaky positioning.
First-hand insight is the hidden goldmine
Just like customer feedback shapes great products, first-hand insight shapes great CI.
Examples include:
A competitor name dropped during a sales call
A churned customer explaining why they left for another tool
A CS team member hearing comparison points directly from the user
These don’t show up on any landing page.
But they’re often the earliest signals of a shift in positioning, pricing, or product strategy.
Are tools like Gong really being used to their potential?
Tools like Gong are incredible.
They help capture and organize voice-of-customer data at scale — through recordings, transcripts, tags, and AI summaries.
But even with these tools, what happens next?
Insights sit in calls no one revisits
Competitive mentions are buried in long transcripts
Only the person on the call remembers the key moment
It’s not a tool problem. It’s a workflow problem.
Are we really turning that captured gold into shared, strategic knowledge?
CI needs a feedback loop — not just a folder
Gathering first-hand insight isn’t enough. We need a cycle that brings it full circle:
Capture it from real interactions
Extract actionable insight
Feed it back into sales decks, battlecards, messaging
Just pasting a link into Slack isn’t CI.
It’s what we do with it that matters.
What we’re building with Steve
At Steve, we’re building a system that connects to tools like Gong and Slack to automatically:
Extract competitive insight from real conversations
Turn them into structured CI content
Deliver it directly into your team’s workflow
Because raw intel is only valuable when it’s activated.
📨 Know someone managing CI alone?
Forward this to a PMM or founder who might find it helpful.
We’re also interviewing PMMs about how they manage CI — reach out if you'd like to share your story.