Once you have a problem in mind, find out how people handle it today. For the agency-reporting idea, another reporting app is only one alternative: the agency might also use spreadsheets, slide templates or a freelancer. Your product would need to give them a reason to change that arrangement.
By the end of this guide
A comparison of the alternatives and a specific reason a buyer might switch.
01 / Map the alternatives
Include the spreadsheet.
Start by listing the customer's options. An agency could pay for reporting software, use a spreadsheet or have someone assemble the report by hand. Keeping the current process is also a choice, even if it looks inconvenient to you.
Open the actual product and pricing pages. Record what each option includes, who it serves and the date you checked. Distinguish a vendor price from a number repeated in a roundup.
- Alternative
- What does the customer use today, including manual work?
- Cost
- What do they pay, and what time or effort remains?
- Reason to change
- What would your approach improve enough to justify switching?
02 / Read the complaints
Find the workflow behind the feature request.
With those alternatives in view, read their reviews, request boards and support discussions. If an agency asks for better exports, investigate why. It might need a branded client report, or it might be trying to move its data to another tool. Those are different problems to solve.
Check the date and the current product before calling something a gap. The feature may have shipped, or the complaint may concern a different plan or buyer.
03 / Write the case
State what you found and what you still assume.
Bring the findings into a short case. For the reporting idea, explain who prepares the report, which tools they use, and which part your approach would improve. Link factual claims to sources and label the proposed improvement as an assumption until a buyer has evaluated it.
Then list what the public web cannot answer: whether the buyer considers the problem urgent, can approve the purchase, and would switch. Take those questions to potential customers.
- Name the buyer and the current alternative.
- Describe one improvement they could evaluate.
- Choose a customer conversation or experiment to test that claim.
Tools for the task
Where to do this work
This is the public-research part of the work. Hunting Apps can gather alternatives and complaints with their sources; the recorded verdict shows how those findings can lead to a decision to stop.
Your next action
Write the reason someone might switch.
Use the comparison to finish one sentence: this buyer would choose our approach because it improves this part of their current workflow. Mark anything you have not checked with a buyer as an assumption.
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Sources and limits
These are practical recommendations drawn from the sources below. Founder accounts are retrospective, and vendor guides describe their authors' approaches. They do not establish a guaranteed result for your project.
A vendor guide to public complaints, workarounds and competitive research. Its verdict is an interpretation of that evidence.
A coaching playbook that separates evidence gathering from customer conversations and payment signals.