Whitespace Finder (DEPTH Model)

Map the gap between what the market demands and what exists. Produces quantified, validated opportunity scores for product and GTM decisions.

When to Use

• New product ideation
• Feature prioritization against market need
• Adjacent market exploration
• Investment thesis validation
• Pre-PRD opportunity validation

What You'll Need

Critical inputs (ask if not provided):

• Market or product category to analyze
• Target customer segment(s)
• Known competitors (or ask me to research)

Nice-to-have:

• Signal Radar output (if previously run)
• JTBD Extractor output (if previously run)
• Customer feedback or support ticket themes

Process

Step 1: Demand Evidence Collection

Audit demand across 6 evidence channels:

Channel	What to Look For	Evidence Quality
Community forums (Reddit, HN, Discourse)	Problem-statement posts, workaround discussions	Medium -- shows real pain
Review mining (G2, Capterra, TrustRadius)	1-3 star review complaint patterns, missing feature mentions	High -- verified buyers
Search demand	Volume for problem queries vs. solution queries (gap = unmet need)	High -- quantifiable
Support tickets	Recurring themes, feature requests, workaround patterns	High -- your own customers
Analyst reports	Problem statements, unmet need callouts, market gaps cited	High -- expert validation
Adjacent product requests	Features users ask for that cross product boundaries	Medium -- shows expansion opportunities

For each channel, extract the top 5 unmet needs with supporting evidence.

Step 2: Gap Matrix Construction

Build a 2D matrix:

• X-axis: Customer needs/jobs (from research or JTBD Extractor)
• Y-axis: Existing solutions in market (products, workarounds, manual processes)

Rate each cell:

Rating	Meaning
0	Completely unaddressed -- no solution exists
1	Poorly addressed -- solutions exist but are inadequate
2	Adequately addressed -- good-enough solutions exist
3	Well addressed -- strong solutions, hard to differentiate

Whitespace = cells rated 0-1 with strong demand evidence.

Step 3: DEPTH Scoring

Score each whitespace opportunity (1-10):

Dimension	What It Measures	Scoring Guide
Demand Evidence	Volume and quality of signals indicating real demand	1=anecdotal, 5=multiple sources, 10=overwhelming evidence
Existing Solutions	How well current solutions address it (inverse)	1=well solved, 5=partial solutions, 10=nothing exists
Pain Intensity	Severity of unmet need	1=nice-to-have, 5=significant friction, 10=hair-on-fire problem
Total Addressable Need	Size of population with this unmet need	1=tiny niche, 5=meaningful segment, 10=mass market
Hurdle Analysis	Barriers to entry (inverse -- high = low barriers)	1=massive barriers, 5=moderate effort, 10=easy to enter

Opportunity Score = (D x 0.25) + (E x 0.20) + (P x 0.25) + (T x 0.15) + (H x 0.15)

Classification:

• 7.5+ = Prime Opportunity (high confidence, prioritize)
• 5.0-7.4 = Promising (validate further before committing)
• Below 5.0 = Marginal (park unless strategic fit is strong)

Step 4: Opportunity Clustering

Group related whitespace opportunities into "opportunity zones" that could be addressed by a single product or feature set. Each zone gets:

• Combined DEPTH score (weighted average of constituent opportunities)
• Shared customer segment
• Common technical requirements
• Estimated effort to address

Output

Save to outputs/whitespace-[market]-[YYYY-MM-DD].md

Deliverables:

1. Gap Matrix: Heat map of needs vs. solutions with whitespace cells highlighted
2. Opportunity Scorecards: One per whitespace opportunity with DEPTH scores and evidence citations
3. Opportunity Zones: Clustered opportunities showing which can be addressed together
4. Validation Roadmap: Prioritized experiments to validate top opportunities (surveys, prototypes, landing page tests)

Chain Connections

• Next skill: Run market-analyzer to size the opportunities you discovered
• Also feeds: position-lock (validated opportunities become positioning targets), battle-scanner (whitespace informs differentiation angles)
• Enhanced by: Run after signal-radar (signals point to where whitespace may exist)