Finding competitors is easier if you’ve already identified at least one before you begin your research. With one competitor name, you can look for profiles or news that may list their – and your – competitors, and build out from there.
If you haven’t identified a competitor, try asking around—or connecting with a MaRS advisor to see if they know of any companies you should have on your radar.
Competitor Startups
Here are your best bets:
CrunchBase: Use the Browse companies feature to view companies within broad industry segments or use the advanced search feature to search for keywords. You can also use CrunchBase’s tags to further refine your search. Some—but not all—CrunchBase company profiles list competitors.
YouNoodle: YouNoodle is a relatively new service that allows you to browse startups by category and follow those of interest.
Techvibes Startup Companies: This is essentially an alphabetical list of startups. It can be filtered by city but is not truly searchable.
Techvibes Technology Companies: Search for keywords to identify competitors on Techvibes’ list of technology companies.
StartupNorth Index: Use StartupNorth’s industry browsing feature to identify relevant competitors.
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If you’re struggling to identify competitors, try setting up a Google alert or Yahoo alert to monitor keywords tied to your startup. You might locate new entrants into your space. Twitter has also become an important pre-launch and launch channel for many startups. Use a Twitter monitoring tool such as Monitter or TweetBeep to track keywords relevant to you. Still can’t find what you are looking for? Please contact your MaRS advisor about accessing MaRS Market Intelligence services to supplement your own research. |
Other Competitors
If you are looking for more established competitors OR are in the enterprise space, you can use these sources to identify relevant companies:
- directories
- periodical directories, rankings, and buyer/supplier guides
- associations' member directories, and buyer/supplier guides
Directories
Industry Canada Canadian Company Capabilities: Canadian Company Capabilities is a database of over 60,000 Canadian businesses, with data supplied by the companies themselves. You can search by keyword or within more specialized vertical directories or browse by category.
Yahoo Business to Business Directory: Yahoo still outshines many of its free company directory competitors with this catalogue of sites, thanks in part to the manual selection and editing involved. Most categories can be drilled down at least one additional level. Browsing is recommended, as the search feature will return non-directory results as well.
Yahoo Shopping and Services Directory: See above.
Kompass: Kompass is a business- company directory with over three million listings and global coverage. Search by keyword against descriptions of company products and services or browse by categories. If you know the relevant SIC or NAICS industry code (these are codes used to categorize industries), you can search by these as well.
Periodical Directories, Rankings, and Buyer/Supplier Guides
Many periodicals that target a specific vertical publish directories or rankings of companies within their own industry or of key vendor groups. They may also publish guides to vendors, technology or suppliers in their industry. This kind of content may be published as a special issue or as a feature article, and is usually published annually and at the same time each year.
Not sure what these are or how they could add value to you? Here’s an example:
STORES Software Sourcebook: If you’re developing a solution or app in the retail space, this special supplement to STORES magazine, published by the US National Retail Federation, lists software by category.
To get you started, try one or more of these links:
Hill Library Special Issues Index: This is a free index to special content, including company rankings and supplier or technology guides, produced by hundreds of industry and trade journals or industry-focused websites. Search by keyword or browse by topic. Some content is not available for free online.
Special Issues List of Lists: This is quite literally a list of lists published in various periodicals, both consumer and B2B. While this resource is only updated infrequently, the content can be used to identify annual rankings or guides that may be produced and that could be accessed online.
PennWell: PenWell is a leading B2B publisher that covers the following industries: oil and gas, power, water, fire, dental, IT, electronics, optoelectronics, renewable energy, aerospace and defence, LEDs and lighting.
Penton: Penton is another large B2B publisher. It covers digital media and communications, electronics, electrical systems, energy and construction, food, restaurant, wealth management and other industries.
American Business Media – Products Directory: This is a directory maintained by the US trade association for B2B publishers and related business media providers. Use the Industry screen to identify titles specific to your vertical.
Magazines Canada – Business Media: Here you can click through to the online versions of most major Canadian B2B magazines.
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If these sources don’t give you results, try searching for keywords related to your industry or vertical in combination with search words like “magazines,” “periodicals” or “journals” to see what surfaces. This content may or may not be behind a paywall. If it is, please contact your MaRS advisor to discuss sourcing the full text of the article or articles through MaRS Market Intelligence. |
Associations’ Member Directories, and Buyer/Supplier Guides
Industry associations often publish directories of their members and vendor guides similar to those described above.
To find associations relevant to you, try these links:
Charity Village Professional Associations: Here you’ll find an alphabetical listing of Canadian associations, with some international listings as well. The listing is time-consuming to browse, but it’s perhaps the best free online listing of Canadian organizations.
ASAE Gateway to Associations: On this site you can search for keywords in the association name as well as limit your search by region or association type.
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Print and online directories of associations are almost always available at your public library. Your library may offer a more efficient and more comprehensive way to identify relevant associations. And note, you can use these same periodical and association resources to start a prospect list! |
lick on a tag to proceed to the Startup Library's Delicious page for additional resources:
