Harnessing AI for competitor analysis. How the Ukrainian startup CompetAI works

In our recurring Who Are These People segment, Vector offers founders an opportunity to discuss their projects, covering aspects such as their products, marketing strategies, monetisation, investments, and business plans. The focus this time is on CompetAI, a Ukrainian startup, which provides an AI-driven web service designed to support competitor analysis and research.

Vector’s editor-in-chief Yuliia Tkach interviewed Dmytro Koshkariov, CEO and co-founder of CompetAI, about the product’s features, promotion, investments, and plans.

Conception

CompetAI has three co-founders.

• Dmytro Koshkariov, CEO. Dmytro is an entrepreneur with 14 years’ experience. In 2020, he founded the Seven Mountains marketing agency. He also established Inventum Ukraine, a company focused on the reconstruction and modernisation of industrial thermal equipment. 
• Anna Kyryllova, CMO. She has a solid six years of experience in marketing. She has been involved in projects for Zeppelin Ukraine as well as Seven Mountains and has collaborated with the Usyk Foundation, Econiko, Inventum Ukraine, and EMA.
• Viacheslav Ishchenko, CTO. With 14 years’ experience, he is a senior .NET Framework developer who has worked at Siklum and Intellias.
• Konstiantyn Zheba, COO. Konstiantyn  has also served as COO at Koshkariov’s Seven Mountains and has an entrepreneurial background, having co-founded Ostfield, an agricultural export company, as well as Harbor Protect, a security equipment firm, and Balove, a children’s clothing brand. Additionally, he has experience in product management, particularly with Oleksandr Usyk’s startup Ready to Fight. 

According to Dmytro Koshkariov, the idea for CompetAI came about as part of a vision of the Seven Mountains agency: to make marketing tools — including competitor analysis, market assessments, and target audience identification — readily available to small businesses, all while conveying the importance and practical advantages of such tools. 

The product was initially planned to be based on a substantial in-house database, with the goal of minimising the workload through information processing and partial automation.

However, Koshkariov stated that this task grew obsolete with the development of AI: «AI has a large knowledge base, which it processes at high speed. Our task is to boost the marketing knowledge of the AI model, effectively select and analyse competitors, and provide the user with practical benefits informed by these findings. 

Working with clients across different sectors, we have frequently observed that they confront issues at the strategic level. We started implementing the project in 2024, adapting our own competitor analysis methodology. In parallel, we trained the marketing AI model and developed an analysis script. 

We understand what the level of quality and usefulness should be for the user (competitor selection, data collection based on specific criteria, and recommendations) because we often do this manually for the agency’s clients. Client cases help us test and refine our product, as well as analyse competitor products», — says the co-founder. 

We have almost finished the back-end development of the product, and the team is preparing for its upcoming marketing launch. As of now, there are no plans to expand the team, but they are looking to add a full-stack web developer, QA specialists, and support staff in the future.

Product and audience

CompetAI is a web-based service designed to analyse and investigate competitors using AI technology. After receiving a link to a product or service category, CompetAI conducts an in-depth analysis of a company, assessing it against a range of criteria, identifying and grouping competitors, and providing comparative insights and recommendations. These are then formatted into a PDF report. 

«We also enhance the analysis with training modules and statistics to elevate users’ marketing knowledge. CompetAI can complete the analysis in just five minutes, while a manual effort would take upwards of 20 hours, assuming the human is familiar with the task», — Dmytro explains.

He believes that CompetAI is just a part of a larger vision and the starting point of a global mission. The team created a roadmap for the development of the product line and optional offerings, aligned with the elements of the marketing analysis: analysis of competitors, market trends, and target audience. “The AI analytics market worldwide is quite young yet already a multi-billion-dollar industry. It is expected to hit $29 billion by 2024 and is growing at a remarkable compounded annual growth rate of 22.5%. The United States is the clear leader in the competitive intelligence market, holding a significant 63% of market share, which is far ahead of the UK, which has only 10%.

The key target market is the United States. However, they first plan to enter the Ukrainian market. The primary target audience segments include small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. According to Dmytro, marketing agencies and niche freelancers will find the product particularly useful. 

«We realised that small businesses require strategic tools more than medium and large companies, given that their limited resources afford less room for mistakes. This is true even though individual entrepreneurs often lack knowledge about marketing strategies and relevant tools, often believing they are only necessary for larger businesses. Moreover, they are typically preoccupied with operational tasks, focusing on channels and promotional tools. As such, they frequently make mistakes relating to their marketing strategies.

CompetAI helps mitigate these challenges and allows users to:

• make informed decisions with confidence;
• develop effective sales and marketing strategies;
• improve their competitive edge;
• shield their business from competitor attacks and threats».

Business model and marketing strategy

CompetAI operates under both B2B and B2C models. The monetisation strategy includes a one-time purchase option as well as quarterly and semi-annual subscriptions, with an annual payment plan for CompetAI and upcoming products on the startup’s roadmap. 

We have established a marketing and branding strategy, and we are in the process of preparing for our marketing launch. Our plan is to sequentially enter our target markets: first Ukraine, then the UK, and finally the United States.

The key promotional channels in Ukraine are PPC and targeted advertising on social media (banner ads), as we require extensive coverage at this stage. We will certainly include educational content, as not all target audiences are aware of the practical benefits of competitive analysis. This approach works well for us as a marketing agency, since we offer a variety of marketing analyses conducted by our own team of experts».

Investments 

The team have so far invested roughly $20,000 in personal funds. To finalise the product and its launch, they intend to raise $50,000, with another $60,000 needed in the subsequent stage.

Plans

Plans for the next few months involve completing the MVP and rolling it out in Ukraine.