I improved Find Similar Startups: search by company name and see which competitors matter

I built Find Similar Startups to answer a question that comes up whenever someone starts working on a new product: who else is building something like this?

The product kept receiving visitors after I moved on to other work. Some people came back and ran more searches. I also started sharing demos and startup findings from @yorkartur, which brought new people to the site.

Watching those searches and talking with founders gave me a reason to return to the product. I focused on two parts of the experience: making a search easier to start and helping you understand which startup competitors deserve attention first.

How to find startup competitors from a name, URL, or idea

You can start a search in three ways:

• enter the name of a company;
• paste its URL;
• describe a startup idea in your own words.

FSS resolves the input, searches for similar startups, removes weak matches, and ranks the companies that remain.

The company-name path is new. You no longer need to look up a company's website before starting. Enter a familiar name and FSS finds the company and its official domain.

Some names refer to several businesses. In those cases, FSS asks for more context before it continues. A country, domain, or one-line description can identify the company you meant.

You can try the free startup competitor analysis tool with a company you know or an idea you are considering.

Similarity does not tell you which competitors matter most

Two products can look similar while operating at different levels of the market.

A small startup may overlap with your idea almost feature for feature. A major company may solve a broader version of the same problem, reach far more customers, and shape what buyers expect. You need to see both.

FSS now keeps two judgments separate:

• Similarity describes the competitive overlap.
• Market importance describes how established the company is.

Each result can appear as a Major player, Established, Emerging, or Importance unclear company. FSS keeps an unclear result visible when the available evidence cannot support a stronger classification.

The ranking applies these steps:

1. FSS checks whether the company has real competitive relevance.
2. It orders relevant companies by market importance.
3. It uses similarity to break ties inside the same importance level.

This keeps famous but weakly related companies from entering the list because of their size. It also keeps emerging direct competitors visible beside established companies.

Why I made this change

A raw list of similar startups still leaves you with another research task. You have to work out which names represent direct competitors, which companies shape the category, and which small products deserve a closer look.

The new result order gives you a better first screen. You can start with the companies that carry more market weight, then inspect emerging competitors whose product overlap may be stronger.

This classification does not claim to measure revenue, funding, or traffic with a single exact score. It gives you a practical market-level distinction and keeps similarity visible as its own signal.

Find Similar Startups remains free

You can run the same Instant Research flow without buying a report. I am using this phase to improve the core product through real searches.

Try a company name, URL, or startup idea. If FSS resolves the wrong company, misses an obvious competitor, or ranks something strangely, send me the case. Those examples show me where the product needs work.

Next: bringing startup discovery into agents

Today, founders can run this search on the FSS website. I am working on a public find-similar-startups Agent Skill that will bring the same ordered result set into Codex, Claude Code, and compatible agent workflows.

The first version will return the startup list. Your agent can then use its own tools to inspect websites, research founders, compare positioning, capture screenshots, or delegate a deeper investigation.

I will share the installation and examples after I finish validating that workflow.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find the competitors of a company?

Enter the company name or official URL in FSS. The product resolves the company, searches startup-relevant sources, filters weak matches, and returns similar companies with separate similarity and market-importance labels.

Does the largest company always rank first?

No. A company must pass the competitive-relevance check before market importance affects its position. A large adjacent company should not outrank a smaller direct competitor just because it has more traction.

Can I search from a startup idea?

Yes. Describe the customer, problem, and product in plain language. FSS can use that description when you do not have a company or URL yet.

Try Find Similar Startups