# How to Find Customers From Your Competitors | PumpGTM Canonical URL: https://pumpgtm.com/blog/how-to-find-customers-from-your-competitors [← All guides](/blog) Lead generation Customer discovery # How to find customers from your competitors: the competitor lead universe List who already buys from your competitors and who engages with their posts, then ask them for feedback instead of a sale. The 4 steps, with Claude or ChatGPT. Namanyay Goel · October 20, 2026 · 8 min read On this page - [What the competitor lead universe tells you](#what-the-competitor-lead-universe-tells-you) - [Step 1: Mine your competitors' customers](#step-1-mine-your-competitors-customers) - [Step 2: Mine the people engaging with their posts](#step-2-mine-the-people-engaging-with-their-posts) - [Step 3: Ask for feedback, not a sale](#step-3-ask-for-feedback-not-a-sale) - [Step 4: Follow up on every channel](#step-4-follow-up-on-every-channel) - [What it gets you](#what-it-gets-you) - [Questions founders ask](#questions-founders-ask) To find customers from your competitors, list the companies that already buy from them and the people who engage with their posts, then reach out asking for feedback instead of a sale. I call this the competitor lead universe. It works best once you have a few customers and want to break into a category that already has a leader, and it is how I got conversations with executives at late-stage companies (Series C and later). ## What the competitor lead universe tells you A competitor's customers and fans are people who already have the problem and already pay to solve it. Once you have a list of the companies they sold to, and the people inside those companies getting the most value, you learn three things fast: who the category is really for, where the market is operating, and what the annual contract value is. Then you use the same list to get feedback and your next 10 customers. ## Step 1: Mine your competitors' customers Visit each competitor's website with an AI scraper and pull out every case study, testimonial and customer logo. Make a list of the accounts, and the people named inside them. Firecrawl, Exa and Context.dev all do the scraping, or you can ask Claude or ChatGPT directly: For each of these competitors, find every company named in their case studies, testimonials and customer logos. Return company, website, and the person quoted if there is one. If you want to turn that into your whole market, with look-alike companies and the buyers inside them, the full walkthrough is in [find hot leads with Claude or ChatGPT](/blog/how-to-build-a-lead-list-with-ai). ## Step 2: Mine the people engaging with their posts There is a second, fresher source: your competitors' social media. Every one of them posts on LinkedIn and X. Go to their pages and look at the people who commented on, or engaged with, those posts. Some of them are thinking about the problem so much that they like a company page. Make a list, then qualify it against your ICP before you message anyone. [Your competitor's comment section is a lead list](/blog/research-competitor-comments-for-buyer-intent) goes deeper on reading the comments, and PumpGTM can [follow a profile and collect everyone who engages with its posts](/blog/follow-linkedin-profile-post-engagers) for you. ## Step 3: Ask for feedback, not a sale You now have a list of prospects who are interested in your competitor's solution. Your job is to message all of them. LinkedIn is great for B2B, and email, X or even a phone call work too. Because these people already chose a mature category leader, don't try to force a sale. Position yourself as a young, eager founder who wants to learn: how they think about the market, what they like about their current tool, what they don't, and what features they think are missing. A message as short as this works: I'm building in this space. What do you like about your current tool, and what's missing? ## Step 4: Follow up on every channel The best way to get the most conversations is multi-channel outreach: the feedback ask, then one or two follow-ups on LinkedIn, email and X, so they remember your name. You can automate that with Claude or ChatGPT. I built all of it into PumpGTM for myself: connect it, then use the PumpGTM MCP to send the messages and follow-ups across channels from the same chat. The [LinkedIn and email play](/plays/linkedin-email) runs the sequence from your own accounts, [safely](/blog/is-linkedin-automation-safe-pumpgtm-account-protection), and [this is how the follow-ups work across channels](/blog/multi-channel-outbound-next-10-customers). ## What it gets you Using this myself, I have landed conversations with executives at Series C and later-stage companies. Beyond the meetings, you learn how much buyers pay and how they choose their tools, which is the information you need to position against the category leader. ## Transcript Hey, I'm Namanyay. I'm the CEO of PumpGTM.com. We're a Y Combinator-backed startup and we help startups get more sales by scaling their GTM motion across LinkedIn, Twitter, email, and much more. I'm going to tell you an interesting secret to get more insight and data about the market and the category you're trying to get into. This is going to be really useful if you've got some of your initial customers already and if you're trying to learn more about how to establish yourself into an existing category and break it. So I call this one the competitor lead universe. What we're doing here is understanding who is interested in purchasing our competitor's services. Once we have a list of all of the companies that they have targeted and sold to and the people inside the company who are finding the most value from their solutions, we get a much better idea about who the category is for, where the market is operating, what the annual contract value is, and we can use this information to get feedback and get our next 10 customers. So here's how I do it. Number one, use an AI automated scraper to visit their website, get all of their case studies, testimonials, and make a list of all of their accounts and the leads inside that account. Now there's many tools you can use, Firecrawl, Exa, Context.dev, or I've built all of that into pumpgtm.com, my own tool, which you can check out as well. But that's not it. There's another great source to find out people who are interested in your competitor solution, and that is by looking at their social media profiles. All of these companies have a LinkedIn, Twitter, and much more. If you go to their pages, see the people who've commented or engaged on those posts, and then make a list and qualify them along according to who the ICP might be. Again, you're going to get a lot of interesting people, a lot of people thinking about these problems, thinking about it so much that they're liking company pages and tweets. So now you have a list of prospects who are interested in your competitor solution. Your job is now to send them all messages. Now I personally think LinkedIn is great for B2B. You can of course use email, you can use Twitter, or you can just start calling them up. And instead of trying to force a sale here, because we already know that they are interested in a category leader. Instead, we can position ourselves as a young, eager founder, trying to get more information or feedback from them about how they're thinking about this market, what tools they like and what they do not like, and what features do they think are missing. Now, the best way to maximize your conversations is going to be sending them multi-channel outreach. You can try automating that with ChatGPT or Claude. Honestly, I built all of this for myself in pumpgtm.com. It's all inbuilt there. you connect it and use our MCP to send out messages across these social channels. But whichever way you want, send them this cold message asking for feedback and make sure you follow up once or twice so they bring up your name and they remember. Using this method myself, I have landed conversations with executives in Series C and Series E companies so I can honestly tell you this really works. And this gives you a great idea of the market, how much are they paying and how they're choosing their solution. So I hope you get your next 10 customers with it. If you do, tell me about it in the comments and go get that pump. ## Questions founders ask How do I find customers from my competitors? List the companies in your competitors' case studies, testimonials and customer logos, then the people who comment on and engage with their LinkedIn and X posts. Qualify both lists against your ICP and reach out asking for feedback, not a sale. What is the competitor lead universe? Everyone who buys from or engages with your competitors: their customers, the people inside those customers, and the people interacting with their posts. It shows who your category is for, where the market is, and what deals are worth. Can I find my competitors' customers with ChatGPT or Claude? Yes. Ask it to go through each competitor's case studies, testimonials and logo wall and return the companies and the people quoted. Scraping tools like Firecrawl, Exa and Context.dev do the same at scale. What should I say when I message a competitor's customer? Ask for feedback instead of pitching: you're building in the space, what do they like about their current tool, and what's missing. People who already use a category leader answer that far more often than a sales pitch. Is it OK to message people who engage with a competitor's posts? Yes, when the message is relevant and personal. Qualify them first, keep it to a feedback question, and follow up only once or twice. When should I use this method? Once you have a few customers and want to establish yourself in a category that already has a leader. It is also the fastest way to learn the market's pricing and buying process. [Original source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF-gM4S1raU) · 2026-10-20 · Adapted and expanded for PumpGTM [Namanyay Goel](https://nmn.gl/) · Founder, PumpGTM Founder of PumpGTM (YC). Writes about founder-led GTM, LinkedIn outbound, and the systems behind it. [X](https://x.com/NamanyayG)[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/namanyayg/) On this page - [What the competitor lead universe tells you](#what-the-competitor-lead-universe-tells-you) - [Step 1: Mine your competitors' customers](#step-1-mine-your-competitors-customers) - [Step 2: Mine the people engaging with their posts](#step-2-mine-the-people-engaging-with-their-posts) - [Step 3: Ask for feedback, not a sale](#step-3-ask-for-feedback-not-a-sale) - [Step 4: Follow up on every channel](#step-4-follow-up-on-every-channel) - [What it gets you](#what-it-gets-you) - [Questions founders ask](#questions-founders-ask) Share Founders doing this with PumpGTM [Browzer Browzer reaches DevRel leaders with outreach that reads like Rahul wrote it](/customers/browzer)[LADR Media LADR Media went from "nothing is happening" to a booked meeting in two days](/customers/ladr-media)[Harbor Harbor reaches clinical leaders at medical device companies on LinkedIn](/customers/harbor) ## Find and engage with buyers across channels Give your AI the super strength to find you leads and message them till you get the sale across LinkedIn, email, X, and more. ## More guides [### How to sell to developers and engineers on X (the GTM channel nobody uses) If you sell to CEOs, engineers or developers, the most underrated outbound channel in 2026 is X. 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