pm-alternatives
Use when assessing how target users solve their problem today — competitors, substitutes, manual workarounds — and where those fall short, or when 03-use-cases.md exists and current-market context is needed. Step 4 of the idea-to-mvp flow.
Install this skill
/plugin marketplace add oferregev81pt/ai-pm-skills/plugin install idea-to-mvp@ai-pm-skills
Step 4 — Current Alternatives & Weak Spots
"How well do current products serve these use cases?" The gaps are where a new product earns its existence. Alternatives include non-products: spreadsheets, WhatsApp groups, hiring someone, doing nothing.
Prerequisites
Read product/<idea-slug>/00-status.md, 01-intake.md, 03-use-cases.md
(and 02-users.md for context). Missing → offer to run the producing step,
or accept an equivalent doc. Never reconstruct prior steps from chat memory.
Research mode
- Web search available → offer it: a research subagent finds direct
competitors, adjacent substitutes, and how each addresses the must-win use
cases. Every claim gets a source or a
[assumption]tag. - No web search (or PM declines) → draft purely from the PM's knowledge and
the intake doc; tag EVERY market claim
[assumption]. - Declining web research is NOT skipping the step: the step still runs and
produces
04-alternatives.md, just knowledge-only. Skipping means the PM chose not to discuss alternatives at all.
Drafting instructions (dispatch to a subagent when available, else inline)
Draft a table: alternative × must-win use cases → how well it serves each (well / partially / not at all) + its biggest weak spot. Include at least one non-product alternative. Conclude with 1–2 candidate WEDGES: the underserved spots where a new product could win.