Competitive White-Space Scan
Map what category leaders do and omit, then design around the open gap
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
The Competitive White-Space Scan begins with the major products in a category and asks two questions of each: what are they doing, and what are they not doing? The founder compares the answers across multiple leaders, looking for an omission that is both common and meaningful. That omission becomes the basis for a deliberately different mechanism rather than another copy of the category standard. Jones says he reviewed payment and money-transfer products including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal while developing Givebox. He then centered his product on a combination he believed those platforms did not provide in the same way: payments, rewards, and embedded giving. The output is a specific differentiation thesis that can guide product design.
Origin
Ken Jones said he designed Givebox by comparing major payment platforms, examining both their capabilities and their omissions. Extracted from Coffeez for Closers.
Core principles
- 01Competitor omissions can be more useful than feature lists
- 02A differentiated product needs a deliberate gap
- 03Compare several category leaders before choosing the gap
- 04Build around a mechanism competitors do not provide
How to run it
- 1
Name the category leaders
Create a focused list of the products that define user expectations in the target category.
Pro tip Include adjacent products that solve part of the same job.
Watch out Do not draw a market conclusion from a single competitor.
- 2
Map current capabilities
Document the jobs, features, and transaction patterns each leader already supports.
Watch out Separate what the product actually does from what its marketing implies.
- 3
Map shared omissions
Ask what each leader does not do and look for gaps repeated across the category.
Pro tip Phrase each omission as an unserved user outcome.
- 4
Select a valuable gap
Choose an omission that can create a meaningful difference for a defined user rather than novelty alone.
Watch out A missing feature is not automatically a viable opportunity.
- 5
Design around the difference
Make the selected gap central to the product mechanism and proposition.
Pro tip Explain the difference as a user outcome, not only as a feature comparison.
In the wild
Jones reviewed leading payment and money-transfer platforms and compared their existing functions with what they left undone. He used the perceived absence of embedded, reward-funded giving as part of the basis for a platform that combines purchasing, user rewards, and charitable allocation.
→ The product direction was organized around a distinct purpose rather than duplicating another digital wallet.
Common mistakes
Copying the visible feature set
Studying only what leaders already do steers the new product toward imitation instead of white space.
Treating every omission as demand
A category gap still needs to create meaningful value; absence alone does not prove an opportunity.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for founders entering a mature category with visible products and an identifiable unmet use case.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when the apparent gap has no evidence of user value or exists because of an unresolved legal constraint.
From the transcript
“I looked at all the big boys. What's Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, PayPal. What are they doing? What are…”
“And that's part of how I came up with this idea. I wanted to do something that that was just different.”
From the episode
Revolutionizing Shopping and Giving ft. Kenyatto Jones
Kenyatto Jones