Every market has gaps: things no product does, customers no product was designed for, prices nobody charges. Most of them are empty because nobody wants them filled. The skill is not finding gaps; it is telling a real opening from a dead end before you build into it.
What counts as a gap
A market gap is a need that existing options serve badly or not at all, and that someone would pay to have served. Both halves matter. Without the second, it is a missing feature, not an opportunity.
Five places gaps come from
1. Feature gaps
Build a matrix: competitors across the top, capabilities down the side, marking full, partial or no support. Rows where most competitors are weak are candidate gaps. Rows where every competitor is weak need the most scrutiny: they are either the best opportunity in the market or something customers do not care about.
2. Repeated complaints in reviews
Read the two- and three-star reviews of your direct competitors. One-star reviews are often about billing or outages; middle ratings are where customers explain what the product does not do for them. A complaint that repeats across several competitors is a gap in the market, not in one product.
3. Underserved customers
Look at who each competitor’s homepage, case studies and pricing are built for. If they all target mid-sized companies, the solo operator or the enterprise may be underserved. The same goes for industries, regions and languages.
4. Price gaps
A competitor pricing analysis often shows a missing tier, typically between a cheap self-serve plan and a “contact sales” enterprise plan, or a pricing model nobody offers, such as usage pricing in a per-seat market.
5. Positioning gaps
Read how every competitor describes itself. If they all claim the same thing (fastest, easiest, all-in-one), the angle nobody claims (the most private, the one built for a specific industry, the one with no setup) may be open.
Test the gap before you build
For each candidate gap, look for evidence of demand from at least two sources:
- Search: are people searching for it? See estimating demand with search volume.
- Reviews: do customers ask for it unprompted?
- Workarounds: do people build their own solution with spreadsheets, scripts or services? A workaround is strong evidence, because someone already pays for it in time.
- Conversations: when you describe the problem, not your solution, do people recognize it and tell you what it cost them?
Then score it. Impact is how much evidence of demand sits behind the gap; effort is how hard it is to build and explain. High impact and moderate effort beats a gap that is easy to fill but nobody asked for.
Gaps that are empty for a reason
- Tried and failed: search for shut-down products in the space. If several tried the same gap, find out why before you do.
- Unprofitable to serve: the underserved segment may be underserved because it cannot pay enough to cover support.
- Blocked by regulation or platforms: some features are missing because a platform’s terms or a regulator forbid them.
- Nobody cares: the most common reason. If you cannot find demand from two sources, move on.
If the gaps you find are all the empty-for-a-reason kind, the market may be genuinely crowded, and that is worth knowing early.