[I_Am_Nous]

There's definitely a difference between an 80% solution and the full 100% solution providing the fully rounded experience. Will the market leader 80% features be included as an upgrade for free or available as a value-add for a one time or monthly fee?

Others have mentioned checking the track record of said company to see how often they follow through on new features, but also their general development pipeline to know how long you have to respond if they develop and release on a similar schedule after announcing, such as it taking 2-3 quarters to fully implement vs longer.

[curiousunflower]

Thanks, that's some good input.

How would you go about checking their track record, and the time it takes them to develop features?

I'm clueless at this, would appreciate some inputs

[defrost]

Social engineering - scope out their support forums, their annual reports, media releases.

Identify as many customers of theirs as possible in a few days, then start making notes on those customers; size, people that post in tech | social forums, their media releases.

Follow up with cold calling | DM's via socials etc. to ask about experiences with { problem domain | bigger supply company | software } etc.

It's a hard one to lay out in advance, the path forward will often reveal itself as you scope out more and more.