how to check if your idea is already crowded - in under 30 minutes, all free

before my last two launches I wasted weeks building before checking who else was in the space. don’t be me. here’s the 30-min competitor check I do now, all free tools:

1. search PH archives (5 min)

search your keywords on Product Hunt. sort by launch date. note how the top 5 positioned themselves — the gaps in their taglines are your opening.

2. check who’s actually alive (10 min)

a launch from 2023 means nothing if the startup is dead. quick signals: are they hiring? shipped anything in the last 6 months? active changelog? I use exploreyc.com for this (free db of 8,600+ YC / a16z / PH startups with hiring status) but LinkedIn works too.

3. read the comments on competitor launches (10 min)

this is the goldmine. every complaint under a competitor’s PH launch is a free feature request for YOUR product. sort by most upvoted comments.

4. check HN sentiment (5 min)

search the space on hn.algolia.com. HN people are brutal — if there’s a fundamental objection to the category, they’ve written it down already.

if after 30 min you find 5+ alive, funded competitors and no positioning gap — congrats, you just saved yourself 3 months.

what’s your pre-launch research process? always looking to steal steps 👇