Having 1-2 well-funded competitors can be an ideal scenario for pitching to investors. You’re not the first mover, which means the market is validated, and there’s proven demand. However, the market isn’t overcrowded, so you have a decent shot of finding your own niche. Here’s how to approach talking about your competition with investors and how to use it to your advantage:

🏔 Confirm market landscape. First, double-check if the market isn’t too crowded. Missing a few recent players or new entrants can be a fatal mistake, especially if investors bring them up in meetings. This would show that you haven’t done your homework and don’t understand the competitive landscape.

☎️ Conduct in-depth competitor research. Dive deep into current players. Get their user base, target personas, and strategies. Figure out where they’ve gone wrong and where they’ve won. This research will help you avoid their pitfalls, leverage their strengths, and craft a clear strategy to win market share from them. Where can you offer a better product/service? How can you leverage network effects? What’s a smarter go-to-market (GTM) strategy?

⚖️ Articulate your competitive edge. State directly in your presentation why you will best these competitors. Your competitive edge should be based on thorough research and sound strategy. What is in your product or service sets you apart? Is there something special about the product, perhaps a better user experience, a clever interaction, or perhaps a more efficient way of doing something others don’t do? Explain why your offering fulfils a market need more than the others.

🔫 Highlight greenfield opportunities. On your competition slide, highlight the greenfield opportunities within the market. Discuss how much of the market is still untapped and how many deals potentially don’t have strong competition. That way, you’ll convince the audience that market share is there for the taking and that the field is still relatively open.

🎈 Demonstrate market potential. Present the opportunity. State the size of the market that’s still up for grabs and prove that demand exists. Use data to back up your claims about market opportunities. Demonstrate to investors that there’s a significant, addressable market for what you’re selling.