See the market.
Choose the move.
CompetReview builds decision-ready market landscapes, competitive intelligence and commercial models for companies deciding where to enter, invest, acquire, partner or compete. Not a database. Not a generic report. An evidence-backed answer your management team can act on.
Market research is not decision intelligence
Most market research ends with information: a report, a database, a logo slide. CompetReview starts with a decision. We define the market, map its structure, size the realistic opportunity, identify the players and shifts, challenge the assumptions — and recommend the move. The gap we occupy sits between DIY research in spreadsheets, expensive strategy-consulting projects, and software platforms that hand you data but leave the interpretation to you.
We deliver
- Market landscaping & market trees
- Competitive & commercial intelligence
- Market-entry analysis & sizing (TAM · SAM · obtainable)
- Commercial diligence & investment thesis testing
- Ecosystem & partnership intelligence
- Acquisition target scanning
- Continuous market & competitor monitoring
We do not sell
- 70-page reports nobody reads
- Inflated TAM numbers for pitch decks
- Raw data dumps without interpretation
- Buy/sell/hold calls on public securities
- Regulated investment advice
- Generic "market research" without a decision attached
"An analyst-operated intelligence service for companies that need an answer — not another research platform. Our product is the interpretation and the decision."
One level earlier than everything else we run
Every practice in the family owns one strategic question. CompetReview operates first: understanding the market and choosing the move — before awareness is built, opportunities are chased, or a revenue system is engineered.
CompetReview
Chooses the market. Decision-ready landscapes, sizing, competitive intelligence and the recommended move.
You are hereABM Puzzles
Earns the shortlist. Awareness, shortlist presence and named-account movement in the chosen market.
abmpuzzles.com →SQL Puzzles
Finds the opportunity. Tenders, RFPs, grants and partnership calls — qualified against your capabilities.
sqlpuzzles.com →Revenue Puzzles
Builds the machine. GTM motion, CRM, funnel design and the operating cadence that runs it all.
revenuepuzzles.com →Three decisions. Not fifteen research techniques.
Every engagement starts from the decision on your table — not from a methodology menu. These are the three we own.
Enter
Should we enter this market, vertical, geography or category?
- Market definition & market tree
- TAM, SAM and realistic obtainable market
- Growth & demand drivers
- Competitive intensity & barriers to entry
- Regulatory & procurement environment
- Route-to-market options & entry recommendation
Invest or acquire
Is this company or market as attractive as the thesis suggests?
- Market attractiveness & sizing plausibility
- Target positioning & competitive moat
- Customer & channel concentration
- Growth-assumption stress testing
- Substitution threats & key movers
- Thesis risks & further-diligence questions
Compete or partner
Whom should we fight, follow, partner with — or acquire?
- Competitor archetypes & shelf mapping
- Value-chain & margin-pool analysis
- Pricing & packaging comparison
- Whitespace identification
- Partnership ecosystem & shortlists
- Strategic-move tracking
Not six random services. A maturity ladder.
From a single bounded question, through the flagship decision sprint, to a fully external intelligence capability. Start where the decision is — climb when the stakes prove it.
Market Question Brief
One bounded strategic question, answered fast. A 5–10-page decision memo with the answer, evidence, assumptions, confidence levels and the recommended next research step.
Market Landscape Sprint
A navigable model of the market — not a logo slide. Market tree, value-chain map, shelf map, player landscape, company database, archetypes, shifts and whitespace.
Market Decision Sprint
Starts with an explicit decision — enter, invest, acquire, partner, reposition or walk away — and combines every relevant module into one independently tested recommendation.
Commercial Diligence Sprint
Independent testing of an investment or acquisition thesis: sizing plausibility, moat, concentration risks, downside scenarios, red flags and confirmatory questions for management.
Managed Market Watch
Continuous tracking of entrants, funding, M&A, pricing, hiring, procurement and regulatory shifts — interpreted, not just reported, with a recommended response.
Fractional Intelligence Desk
An external market & competitive-intelligence capability: question backlog, recurring maps, board briefs, new-market screening, battlecards and annual TAM refresh.
Not every client climbs the whole ladder. Only three products are visible at launch ↓ — landscapes, TAM models, deep dives and partnership maps live inside them as modules, not as separate top-level offers.
One question. One decision. Or a standing watch.
Everything else we do plugs into one of these three. The difference between them must be crystal clear — so here it is.
Market Question Brief
One question. One week. One recommendation.
For questions like: Is Germany attractive for this service? Is this €500M TAM plausible? Which three subsegments deserve deeper work?
- 5–10-page decision memo
- Answer & recommendation
- Evidence with confidence levels
- Key unknowns, honestly stated
- Recommended next research step
- Fee creditable against a sprint
Market Decision Sprint
Should we enter, invest, acquire, partner or reposition?
The full evidence base and an independently tested recommendation for one strategic decision — red-teamed before it reaches your board.
- 15–30-page decision memo — never a 70-page report
- Market tree, landscape database & shelf map
- TAM model — theoretical to obtainable
- Key-player & key-mover deep dives
- Risks, counterarguments & scenarios
- 30/60/90-day validation or entry plan
- Executive workshop & full source trail
Managed Market Watch
Know what changed, why it matters, and what to do next.
Tools report what happened. We explain why it matters and what you should do — across entrants, funding, M&A, pricing, hiring and regulation.
- Real-time alerts for significant moves
- Weekly market digest
- Monthly strategic interpretation
- Quarterly landscape update
- Implications & recommended response
- Natural continuation of any sprint
Commercial Diligence Sprints and the Fractional Intelligence Desk are available for investors and larger organisations — we scope those directly. See the FAQ on where diligence starts and where regulated advice never does.
Anatomy of a decision brief
Every engagement — from a one-week question to the flagship sprint — resolves into the same standardised structure. Sixteen fields. Nothing missing, nothing padded, every claim carrying its evidence grade.
Decision
What is actually being decided
Answer
The current conclusion, stated plainly
Market definition
Included and excluded categories
Evidence
What supports the answer — with receipts
Market size
A range, never false precision
Growth
Historical, projected and driver-based
Players
Incumbents, challengers and movers
Customer structure
Who buys, and why
Economics
Pricing, margins or value pools where available
Shifts
What is changing right now
Risks
What could invalidate the thesis
Unknowns
What remains unverified — named, not hidden
Confidence
High, medium or low — per conclusion
Recommendation
Enter, pursue, validate, watch or pass
Next action
What to do in the following 30 days
Sources
Fully traceable evidence trail
Standardised modules, combined per decision
We are not a custom-report factory. Every project assembles from documented playbooks — which is how a decision sprint ships in weeks, not quarters, and gets sharper with every market we map.
Market Tree
A taxonomy of sectors, categories, use cases, buyer problems and business models. Its job: prevent vague or inflated market definitions before sizing starts.
Market Landscape
The companies in each segment, categorised by product, customer, geography, business model, maturity, ownership and scale — as a usable database.
Shelf Map
The alternatives your customer actually sees: direct competitors, adjacent products, internal builds, manual workarounds, consultancies, bundles — and "do nothing."
★ Our signature — more useful than any competitor tableValue-Chain Map
Inputs to end users — then the bottlenecks, margin pools, control points, dependencies and the acquisition and partnership zones hiding inside them.
Key-Player Deep Dive
For established leaders: revenue model, positioning, pricing, footprint, channels, acquisitions, strengths, vulnerabilities and likely next moves.
Key-Mover Deep Dive
For companies changing the market — hiring surges, funding, rapid expansion, narrative ownership. Key players have power now; key movers may have more later.
Strategy Map
How a player is expanding: build, buy, partner, bundle, new geographies, upmarket or downmarket moves, vertical integration, category creation.
TAM & Opportunity Model
At least two sizing approaches — top-down, bottom-up, supply- or demand-side — always separating theoretical TAM from the realistic 3–5-year revenue pool.
Partnership Ecosystem Map
Channel, implementation, technology, data and credibility partners — longlisted, fit-scored, with a mutual-value thesis and a relationship path to each.
Acquisition Target Scan
From acquisition thesis to shortlist: target universe, strategic and capability fit, customer overlap, synergies, ownership and transaction feasibility.
Seven steps from question to move
We never begin with "research the market." We begin with the decision — because the decision determines what evidence matters.
Frame the decision
Not "research cybersecurity" — but "should this company invest €500k entering cybersecurity for mid-market German manufacturers?"
Define the market
Explicitly document included and excluded categories, geography, customer size, use cases, business models and time horizon.
Form hypotheses
"The segment grows on regulation." "Incumbents underserve the mid-market." "Partners control access." Testable — or worthless.
Build the evidence base
Filings, registries, funding and M&A records, procurement awards, pricing pages, job postings, reviews, patents, expert and customer interviews.
Triangulate
Every important conclusion carries its evidence grade — the four-tier language below runs through everything we ship.
Red-team the thesis
Evidence against the recommendation, alternative explanations, source bias, missing information — and the conditions under which the answer flips.
Recommend the move
Enter. Enter through a partner. Test one subsegment. Acquire capability. Postpone. Monitor. Reject. The answer always ends in an action.
Evidence with receipts
Every important statement in a CompetReview deliverable connects to a source, a date, an evidence type and a confidence level. You always know which of these four you're reading:
Directly documented in a primary source — filing, registry, contract award, published price.
Consistent across multiple independent sources that don't share an origin.
Derived from our sizing or growth models — with the inputs shown, not hidden.
Our informed judgment, clearly flagged — with the test that would confirm or kill it.
What you buy, who runs it, where it ends
| Offering | What you buy | Who operates | Where the scope ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market Question Brief | A fast answer to one bounded question | CompetReview | At the recommended next research step |
| Market Decision Sprint | An independently tested recommendation | CompetReview | At the 30/60/90-day validation or entry plan |
| Commercial Diligence Sprint | A stress-tested commercial thesis | CompetReview | At confirmatory questions — never a valuation |
| Managed Market Watch | Interpreted market change, continuously | CompetReview | At the recommended response — you decide |
| Fractional Intelligence Desk | An external CI capability | CompetReview | At intelligence — execution flows to the family |
What CompetReview does not provide
- Legal due diligence
- Tax due diligence
- Audit or accounting assurance
- Technical or cybersecurity diligence
- Formal company valuation
- Fairness opinions
- Regulated investment advice
- Buy/sell/hold recommendations on securities
- Personal financial recommendations
Our scope is commercial diligence, market attractiveness and thesis testing. Where specialist diligence is needed, we coordinate vetted legal, tax, technical and valuation partners.
Where clients start — and where it leads
🧭 You're weighing a new market, country or category
💼 You're an investor testing a thesis
🏢 You need continuous intelligence, not a project
Frequently asked
Isn't this just market research?
No — and the difference is the commercial unit. Market research sells information: reports, databases, logo slides. CompetReview sells a decision: an independently tested recommendation on whether to enter, invest, acquire, partner, reposition or walk away. TAM models, landscapes and competitor deep dives are modules inside that decision — never the headline.
How is this different from CB Insights, AlphaSense or expert networks?
Those are excellent platforms and sources — and we happily use data platforms and expert input where they help. But they hand you data, documents or interview hours and leave the interpretation to you. CompetReview is analyst-operated: we define the market, weigh the evidence, red-team the thesis and put our name under a recommendation. You read an answer, not a dashboard.
Do you provide investment advice?
No. We provide commercial diligence, market-attractiveness analysis and investment-thesis testing — never personal recommendations concerning transactions in financial instruments, and never buy/sell/hold calls on public securities. That boundary keeps our work clearly outside regulated investment advice, and we state it in every diligence engagement. Where formal valuation or specialist diligence is needed, we coordinate qualified partners.
How do I know I can trust the numbers?
Because every important claim carries a grade: verified fact, triangulated estimate, modelled assumption or analyst hypothesis — each with a source, a date and a confidence level. Market sizes are always ranges built from at least two approaches, never a single large number. And every sprint includes a red-team section: the evidence against our own recommendation, and the conditions under which the answer changes.
Which sectors do you cover?
We start where we have real credibility: software and IT services, B2B technology, AI and agentic systems, space and geospatial, engineering, consulting, and energy-transition-adjacent services — primarily for European companies with 20–500 employees, plus investors screening those markets. We add specialist sectors only through vetted domain experts, and we'll tell you when a market sits outside our depth.
What happens after the recommendation?
This is where CompetReview differs most from standalone research boutiques. A decision to enter can flow straight into execution across the family: ABM Puzzles builds awareness and shortlist presence in the chosen market, SQL Puzzles monitors tenders, grants and buying signals there, and Revenue Puzzles designs the GTM motion, CRM and operating cadence. Most providers hand over a report. We can hand over the next operating system.
How fast is a Market Question Brief, really?
3–5 working days for one bounded question — "Is this €500M TAM plausible?", "Is Germany attractive for this service?", "Which three subsegments deserve deeper work?". You get a 5–10-page memo with the answer, the evidence, the unknowns and the recommended next step. If the question grows into a full Decision Sprint, the brief fee is credited against it.
Bring us one market question
Tell us the decision on your table — the market, the thesis, the move you're weighing. Within one week we'll return a scoped answer: what we can conclude now, what needs testing, and what it would take to decide with confidence.