[patio11]

This is one of those "Certainly feels like work, but does not actually advance the business forward, so why bother doing it?" sort of tasks.

[cat9]

The most useful refactoring of this is, "have non-sales conversations with actual intended customers, learn about how they see this problem including how they're currently dealing with it, which may or may not include existing tools."

At which point, we're talking about basic customer development interviews, which are way more useful than "google up a list of possible alternatives."

[dennisgorelik]

Do you mean that researching competition does not advance business forward?

Why not?

Learning from competitors could occasionally be more valuable than learning from customers.