One description in. A repeatable investigation out.
DittoScout searches the market, finds the closest competitors, shows what their customers want, and reveals where the opportunity is still open.
The pipeline
Every Scout runs the same seven steps in the same order. That is what makes two reports comparable, and what makes one report worth arguing with.
Your idea becomes a structured spec
The description is parsed into a problem, target users, platforms, core and optional features, business model and a set of search terms — including the alternate wording competitors are likely to use instead of yours.
Search providers go looking
App markets, the web and public code repositories are searched with generated queries. Providers create the candidate set. No product enters the report unless a provider returned it.
Candidates are normalised and deduplicated
The same product listed on two stores under two names collapses into one competitor record with both sources attached.
Semantic ranking finds the near misses
Matching runs on meaning rather than keywords, which is how a competitor that never uses your words still shows up in the set.
Features are extracted from each competitor
Store listings, product pages and repositories are read for what each product actually supports, with the evidence recorded next to every claim.
Reviews and market data are mined (DeepScout)
Competitor reviews are clustered into repeated themes, and licensed market data is attached where it is available and labelled as an estimate where it is one.
Scores, then a verdict
Match scores produce a Ditto Score, the GapMap produces a Gap Score, coverage produces Evidence Confidence, and the three together produce a market classification and a Scout Verdict with reasons.
Quick Scout or DeepScout
Two depths of the same investigation. A Quick Scout answers whether the thing exists. A DeepScout answers what to do about it.
Quick Scout
Answer the existence question quickly and cheaply.
- Idea summary
- Top three to five competitors
- Initial Ditto Score
- Basic Gap Score
- Evidence Confidence
- Initial verdict
- Source links
DeepScout
Answer whether you should enter the market, and how.
- Full competitor landscape and semantic match rankings
- Feature matrix and GapMap
- Review Intelligence and customer requests
- Demand evidence, competitor pricing and market estimates where licensed
- Differentiation recommendations and risks
- Scout Verdict with full sources
- PDF export
Reading the labels
Three words carry the difference between something a source showed us, something a third party guessed, and something the system worked out.
- VERIFIED
directly supported by source or provider data.
- ESTIMATED
a third-party estimate, not a measured fact.
- INFERRED
a model or rule interpretation of the evidence.
The GapMap uses a matching discipline for feature cells. A cell reading “not found” means no source showed the capability. It never means the capability does not exist.
Find what exists
One description in, a real competitor set out.
Has someone already built this?
Enter the idea once. DittoScout searches app stores, the web and public code for direct, near and adjacent competitors, then tells you how close the market already is.
Closest Ditto
The nearest match, with its similarity, supported platforms, overlapping features, key differences, pricing where it is verified, source links and a confidence value.
GapMap
Your intended features across every competitor found: supported, partial, not found or unknown. Not found never means it does not exist — it means no source showed it.
Review Intelligence
Reviews are clustered into themes such as missing features, reliability, price, support, onboarding, platform gaps, integrations and privacy, with the number of reviews analysed and the provider shown.
What customers keep asking for
The clusters that repeat across competitors become a list of things customers are already asking someone to build.
Judge the opportunity
Numbers you can argue with, not adjectives.
Ditto Score
Derived from component scores — problem, features, audience, workflow, platform and business model — not produced as a number by a language model.
Gap Score
A high Ditto Score and a high Gap Score can coexist. Ditto 82 with Gap 88 reads as: similar products exist, and meaningful opportunities remain.
Observed Market Evidence
Where a licensed provider supplies them, download and revenue estimates appear too — always labelled as third-party estimates rather than facts.
Greenfield vs Dead Zone
Low competition with real demand, visible workarounds and a feasible build is greenfield. Low competition with weak demand, little discussion and no willingness to pay is a dead zone.
Scout Verdict
One outcome, the rule that produced it, and the reasons behind it. The verdict never appears without the evidence that supports it.
Check the work
Every claim carries its label and its source.
Evidence Confidence
Never confuse “we found nothing” with “nothing exists.” Every report carries a confidence score, and a low-confidence run says plainly that market coverage was incomplete.
Source-first reporting
Claims are labelled VERIFIED, ESTIMATED or INFERRED, and each one lists the sources it came from so you can open them yourself.
No hallucinated competitors
Search providers create the competitor set. Models may interpret products found by a provider; they are never allowed to invent one.
Exportable reports
Paid reports export as PDF for cofounder decisions, product reviews, client work and investor conversations. CSV competitor matrices follow.
Keep watching
Research that stays useful after the day you ran it.
ScoutWatch
DittoScout re-checks the market and tells you when a close competitor appears, a missing feature ships, pricing moves, a major competitor disappears, or a score changes materially.
What changed since my last Scout?
New and removed competitors, added features, pricing and rating changes, new complaint clusters, and whether the verdict itself moved.
Idea Portfolio
Ditto Score, Gap Score, Evidence Confidence, build difficulty, observed demand, monetization opportunity and verdict, compared across everything you have scouted.
BuildRank
Saved ideas ranked by opportunity against competition and effort, so “of the twelve ideas I have saved, which one should I investigate first?” has an answer.