Official skill · Strategy
Know the enemy and yourself
Compares you and one named competitor on Sun Tzu's five factors and seven comparisons, marks every unknown, then picks where to engage, where to avoid, and what to learn first. Use it when A named competitor keeps showing up and the team disagrees on how strong they are.
AI skill
Have your AI compare you and a competitor point by point
14 days free · No card needed
Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- A named competitor keeps showing up and the team disagrees on how strong they are
- Before entering a segment or making a move a rival will answer
- When you know the rival's features better than your own weak points
What you give it
- The contest: which customers you both compete for
- The decision the assessment should serve
- Public facts about the competitor
- Honest facts about your own side (win-loss, churn, team, runway)
What you get
A two-sided table on the five factors and seven comparisons with sources and unknowns, the rival's solid and empty points, where to engage or avoid, a learning plan, and a decision.
How it works
- Name the contest and the decision
- Collect evidence for both sides, with sources and dates
- Compare on the five factors
- Run the seven comparisons as a scorecard
- Grade what you know
- Find their strong and empty points
- Choose where to engage and where to avoid
- Write the learning plan and the decision
Example
What you give it
We're Pantry Ledger, inventory software for independent cafés. Competitor: StockStack. We sell to cafés with one to three sites in the Kansai region. Decision: should we build supplier ordering this quarter to compete head-on? Facts: our price is $29 a month, theirs is $49 a month [their pricing page]. They have supplier ordering; we don't [their site]. G2 reviews of StockStack mention slow support replies, 'two days or more' in 6 of their last 20 reviews. Our win-loss: won 7 of 9 deals against them in single-site cafés, lost 4 of 5 at cafés with three sites, all citing supplier ordering. Our team: 6 people, 2 engineers. Runway 18 months. Their team size: LinkedIn shows about 40 staff. Their funding: unknown. We don't know our own churn reasons; we never asked. Japan's invoice rules changed last year and cafés asked us about receipts.
What you get back (the start of it)
Know the enemy and yourself: Pantry Ledger vs StockStack
Contest: independent cafés with 1–3 sites in Kansai · Decision: build supplier ordering this quarter? · Checked: [date]
Five factors
| Factor | Us | Them | Edge | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose (道) | Win 7 of 9 single-site deals; churn reasons unknown | Reviews complain about support speed | Unknown | [win-loss], [review]; [check: our churn reasons] |
| Timing and conditions (天) | Cafés ask us about invoice-rule receipts | Unknown | Unknown | [internal]; [check: StockStack's invoice support] |
| Terrain (地) | Strong in single-site cafés | Strong in 3-site cafés | Split by café size | [win-loss] |
| Leadership (將) | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | [check: both sides' record of decisions] |
| Method (法) | 6 people, 2 engineers, 18 months runway | About 40 staff; funding unknown | Them on capacity | [internal], [LinkedIn, unverified] |
Seven comparisons
| Question for this contest | Edge | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Whose customers would recommend them? | Unknown | [check: ask 10 customers] |
| Whose team answers customers faster? | Us, likely | [review]; [check: our median reply time] |
| Who holds the better ground? | Us in single-site, them in 3-site | [win-loss] |
| Whose processes run as stated? | Unknown | [check] |
| Whose resources are larger? | Them | [LinkedIn, unverified] |
| Whose team is more skilled at this product? | Unknown | [check] |
| Whose incentives point at the customer? | Unknown | [check] |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
Use this skill in your AIShare it with your team
Add it to an AI Skill Pod and everyone on the team, contractors included, uses the same version from their own AI. Read the best ways to share AI skills with a team
Changelog
- v1.0.1 · · Description: the five factors now carry the names the steps use (purpose, timing and conditions, terrain, leadership, method), not "discipline" for method.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- 孫子兵法 (original Chinese text) - Wikisource (read 2026-11-04)
- Ritsumeikan University, College of Letters: faculty column on the Sunzi and the Yinqueshan bamboo slips (read 2026-11-04)
- The Art of War - Literary Themes for Students (Gale), Encyclopedia.com (read 2026-11-04)