ResearchIntermediate

Research a niche market with AI

Create a fast market scan with customer segments, competitors, pain points, channels, and positioning ideas.

Setup time

1 hour

Time saved

4-7 hours

Best for

Solo founders, Agencies, Product teams

Tools

Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google Sheets

Overview

This workflow gives founders a structured way to understand a niche before building, buying ads, or writing positioning.

When to use this workflow

Validate startup ideas

Prepare client strategy

Research new categories

Tools you need

Perplexity

AI search

Freemium

Answer engine for web research, source discovery, and market scans.

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ChatGPT

AI assistant

Freemium

General AI assistant for drafting, reasoning, rewriting, and structured content generation.

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Google Sheets

Spreadsheet

Free

Spreadsheet tool for lists, planning, lightweight reporting, and repeatable review workflows.

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Step-by-step workflow

Define the market question

Write the market, target customer, geography, price point, and decision you need to make.

Tool used

Google Sheets

Expected output

A clear research brief.

Collect sources

Use AI search to gather competitors, communities, reports, marketplaces, and review sites.

Tool used

Perplexity

Expected output

A source list with notes.

Analyze patterns

Ask AI to extract customer segments, jobs-to-be-done, objections, buying triggers, and channels.

Tool used

ChatGPT

Expected output

A structured market map.

Create positioning options

Generate differentiated positioning angles and testable landing page messages.

Tool used

ChatGPT

Expected output

A set of positioning hypotheses.

Prompt templates

Market map

Create a structured market map for [niche]. Include customer segments, competitors, alternatives, buying triggers, pain points, channels, and open questions.

Positioning options

Based on this market research, generate 8 positioning options. For each, include target customer, promise, proof, risk, and a landing page headline. Research: [paste]