I Spent 48 Hours Stalking My Competitor and Found the Gap Nobody's Talking About
Most people skim their competition and call it research. I built a spreadsheet at midnight like a psychopath and discovered something that changed everything.
I was supposed to be asleep.
Instead, I was watching my 12th Nick Saraev video, taking notes in a spreadsheet that now had 47 rows of data about hooks, visual patterns, and thumbnail colors.
My fiancée walked past my office, looked at the screen, shook her head, and went back to bed without saying a word.
She’s used to this by now.
But something clicked around video 15.
Not the kind of click where you learn a tactic or get inspired.
The kind where your entire positioning crystallizes in front of you and you realize you’ve been operating without a map this whole time.
Nick Saraev is THE GUY in AI automation YouTube content right now.
He’s also a good friend of mine and an extremely nice guy.
But I’m not talking about him personally.
I’m talking about his public persona and content.
Clean visuals, consistent branding, technical authority that doesn’t feel condescending.
He hits this sweet spot where beginners can follow along but advanced people don’t feel talked down to.
That’s genuinely hard to do.
And he’s really fucking good.
Not just competent.
Actually good.
His tutorials work.
His systems are legit.
From a pure “teach me the thing” perspective, he’s crushing it.
But at 2 AM, staring at my increasingly unhinged spreadsheet, I found what he’s not doing.
And it’s not a flaw.
It’s a gap.
A space in the market that’s sitting there, waiting for someone to fill it.
The Thing Nobody Does (But Everyone Should)
You know how everyone says “know your competition” like it’s some profound business wisdom?
Most people nod, glance at a competitor’s homepage, maybe watch one video, and go “yeah cool, I’m different because... reasons.”
That was me.
For years.
I’d look at what other people were doing, notice surface differences, and convince myself I had a unique angle.
But I never actually studied anyone.
Not really.
Not until this week.
And the difference between glancing and studying is the difference between thinking you understand chess and actually being able to play it.
Studying means watching 15 videos and tracking every hook structure.
It means screenshotting thumbnails and putting them side by side.
It means reading YouTube comments not for validation but for patterns.
What questions keep coming up?
What pain points are people expressing that aren’t being addressed?
It means building a spreadsheet at midnight because you can’t sleep until you understand why something works.
Most people skim because deep analysis is uncomfortable.
You have to confront how good someone else is.
You have to acknowledge their strengths honestly instead of dismissing them to protect your ego.
But if you can’t see clearly what they’re doing well, you can’t identify what they’re leaving on the table.
And that’s where the real opportunity lives.
The Gap I Found (And Why It Changes Everything)
Here’s what Nick does perfectly.
Execution.
His videos look professional.
His tutorials are thorough.
His technical knowledge is solid.
If you want to learn how to build an AI automation, he’s your guy.
But there’s something missing.
There’s no enemy.
Think about the content creators who build actual movements.
The ones where people don’t just consume content but feel like they’ve found their tribe.
Gary Vee has an enemy: Comfort and entitlement.
Alex Hormozi has an enemy: Overcomplication and excuses.
Naval has an enemy: Trading time for money without intention.
They’re not just teaching you stuff.
They’re mobilizing you against something.
Nick teaches you how to automate stuff.
Which is valuable.
But do you feel like you’re joining a rebellion?
Do you feel like someone finally gets what you’ve been frustrated about?
Not really.
His content is educational.
But it’s not galvanizing.
And that’s the gap.
Most AI automation content is made by people who love the tech.
They get excited about APIs and webhooks and clever integrations.
They want to show you how cool this stuff is.
But most of the buyers - the people who will actually pay for this - don’t love the tech.
They’re drowning.
They’re agency owners working 80-hour weeks.
They’re founders who can’t take a vacation because everything falls apart.
They’re solopreneurs one bad month away from going back to a job they hate.
Those people don’t want to “learn AI automation.”
They want their life back.
See the difference?
One is curiosity-driven.
The other is desperation-driven.
And desperation is a much stronger buying signal.
My Weird Advantage (Or Why Being a Metal Vocalist Actually Matters)
I used to scream into microphones for a living.
Like, actual metal vocalist stuff.
Touring in a van, sleeping on floors, loading gear at 2 AM kind of life.
Then I became a journalist.
Then I co-founded a company that did $530k its first month and hit just under $1M in November.
On paper, that career arc makes no sense.
But it makes perfect sense if you understand what connects all of it.
Leverage.
How do you get asymmetric results from your inputs?
How do you build systems that work without you?
How do you escape the trap of trading hours for dollars?
I didn’t come to automation from a tech background.
I came from survival.
I needed systems because I was drowning.
I built automation not because I thought APIs were cool but because my business was going to kill me if I didn’t.
And here’s the thing that clicked during my 48-hour competitor deep dive:
That desperation?
That feeling of being trapped by the thing you built?
That’s the real market.
Most AI automation content speaks to people who are intellectually curious about technology.
But the bigger market - the market with actual urgency and willingness to pay - is people who are emotionally exhausted by their business.
They don’t want tutorials.
They want relief.
And that’s what I can give them that Nick doesn’t have to.
Not because he’s not capable.
But because it’s not his story.
His story is: here’s cool stuff you can build.
My story is: I was dying, I built machines to save myself, now I work 4-5 hours a day and have my life back.
Different emotional entry points.
Different promises.
Different audiences.
The Anti-Hustle Thing (And Why It’s Polarizing)
I work about 4-5 hours a day.
Focused hours.
No meetings before noon.
No Slack notifications.
No “always on” bullshit.
And I’m not saying that to flex.
I’m saying it because it’s the result of everything I’m teaching.
The systems, the automation, the AI agents, the delegation frameworks - they all exist to buy back time.
Not to fill that time with more work.
So many people in this space are hustlers at heart.
They teach you automation so you can do more stuff.
Scale more.
Grow more.
Never stop.
Fuck that.
I want to teach people automation so they can close their laptop at 2 PM and go to the gym.
So they can take their kids to school.
So they can have dinner without checking their phone.
So they can have a life that isn’t just about building a business.
This is polarizing.
I know it is.
Some people hear “4-5 hour workdays” and think I’m lazy or lying or privileged.
Cool.
Those people aren’t my audience.
My audience is the person who’s been grinding for years.
Who’s built something real.
Who’s making good money.
But who’s exhausted.
Who’s starting to wonder if this is all there is.
Who looks at the gurus preaching “rise and grind” and feels something between anger and despair.
To that person, I want to say: there’s another way.
And it’s not about working harder.
It’s not even about working smarter in the way that phrase usually means.
It’s about building machines that work for you so you can be a human again.
That’s the emotional territory I want to own.
And it’s completely open.
Nobody else in the AI automation space is speaking to that feeling.
The Framework I Accidentally Built (Use This For Your Market)
Okay, tactical time.
Because the process I went through is more valuable than my specific insights.
Your gaps won’t be my gaps.
Your weird won’t be my weird.
But the approach works for any market.
I’m calling it the Positioning Autopsy.
Five steps:
Step 1: Consume at Volume
You can’t pattern-match on one or two pieces of content.
You need at least 10-15 to see what’s consistent versus what’s variable.
I went through 15 of Nick’s videos.
Read comments on each one.
Looked at view counts and engagement ratios.
Tracked hooks, visual style, tone, frameworks.
It took hours.
But patterns only emerge when you have enough data points.
Yes AI can do this for you but I guarantee you’ll get better insights ACTUALLY reading and watching this stuff yourself.
Step 2: Map the Strengths
Be honest about what they’re doing well.
This isn’t about finding flaws to feel better about yourself.
Nick’s visual identity is incredibly consistent.
Same colors, same style, same energy.
That’s a strength.
His technical authority is real.
He clearly knows his stuff and can back it up.
His tone is accessible without being dumbed down.
He has a voice like Frank Sinatra.
All genuine strengths.
Write them down.
Step 3: Find the Gaps
Now look for what’s missing.
Not what’s bad.
What’s absent.
This is harder because you’re looking for negative space.
For Nick: no clear enemy.
No strong emotional hooks beyond curiosity.
No point of view that might alienate some people.
Those aren’t weaknesses.
They’re spaces.
Step 4: Map Your Weird
What in your background, your story, your perspective fills those gaps?
For me: the anti-hustle stance.
The weird career arc from metal vocalist to journalist to founder.
The specific results I can point to.
The willingness to be polarizing about work culture.
Your weird is your competitive advantage.
But only if it fills a gap in the market.
Step 5: Stress Test
Can you actually sustain this differentiation?
Is it authentic or are you performing?
I can talk about 4-5 hour workdays forever because I actually live it.
I can talk about my weird career path because it actually happened.
If your differentiation requires you to be someone you’re not, it won’t last.
Authenticity isn’t optional.
It’s the only thing that’s defensible.
What Changed While I Was Building the Thing
So while I was doing all this competitor analysis, I was also knee-deep in building what I’m calling the Agentic Operating System.
It’s a way to turn any agency owner into a one-person army by having AI agents handle execution while you just handle direction.
We deployed it this week.
It’s live.
The Telegram bot is responding, the brain is orchestrating workflows, the skill system is loading context automatically.
And here’s what clicked: the competitor analysis isn’t just for content.
It’s informing the actual product.
Because if the gap in the market is “someone who understands WHY people want automation, not just HOW to do it” - then the product needs to reflect that too.
The Agentic OS isn’t designed for people who love tinkering with AI.
It’s designed for people who want to install something, forget about it, and get their life back.
The complexity is hidden.
The magic happens in the background.
You just talk to your agent like you’d talk to a really competent assistant, and stuff gets done.
That’s the vision.
And it’s directly informed by understanding what my competitor is great at - and what he’s not trying to be.
But The Agentic OS is only V1.
V2 is already in development.
That’s Agentcy OS.
The Fear Thing (Because It’s Real)
I should talk about the uncomfortable part.
When I was doing this analysis, I had moments of real doubt.
Nick has way more subscribers.
He’s been doing this longer.
His production quality is insane.
Who am I to think I can compete?
But that’s the thing.
I’m not competing.
I’m complementing.
The market is big enough for multiple voices.
In fact, it needs multiple voices because different people resonate with different energy.
Someone who loves technical deep-dives is going to watch Nick forever.
That’s great.
But someone who’s exhausted and just wants their life back?
They need a different messenger.
Stop thinking about “beating” competitors.
Start thinking about “serving the people they’re not serving.”
There are millions of agency owners.
Even if Nick converts every single person who wants technical AI tutorials, there are still millions who want the result of automation without the process of learning it.
Those are my people.
And I can speak to them in a way nobody else is.
What This All Means (And Why You Should Care)
The output of this 48-hour obsessive analysis:
A clear enemy: Hustle culture, always-on mentality, the idea that success requires suffering
A clear promise: Get your life back by building machines that work for you
A clear differentiation: I actually live the 4-5 hour workday, I have weird credibility, I’m willing to be polarizing
A clear emotional territory: Relief, permission, belonging
A content strategy that starts with WHY you’re drowning, not HOW to build automation
This is worth more than any course I could take.
And I got it by just paying attention.
Deeply.
For an extended period.
Most people don’t do the work.
They want shortcuts.
They want someone to tell them “here’s your niche, here’s your positioning, here’s your content strategy.”
But that stuff has to come from you.
From your weird intersection of experiences and perspectives and values.
The framework can help you structure the analysis.
But the insights have to come from doing the reps.
Consuming the content
Mapping the patterns
Finding the gaps
Testing your weird against those gaps
No one can do that for you.
But if you actually sit down and do the Positioning Autopsy on your market, you’ll end up with something no competitor can copy.
Because it’s uniquely yours.
Where This Goes Next
The reason I’m sharing all this instead of keeping it to myself is because I think the process is more valuable than the conclusions.
My specific gaps won’t be your gaps.
My weird won’t be your weird.
But the approach - deep consumption, honest mapping, gap identification, weird integration, stress testing - that’s replicable.
And in a world where everyone is trying to copy what’s already working, the real opportunity is in the spaces nobody’s filling.
Go find yours.
Do the work that makes you feel slightly unhinged.
Build the spreadsheet at midnight.
Watch the videos until patterns emerge.
Read the comments until you understand what people are really asking for.
Then look at your weird career path, your strange combinations of skills, your polarizing opinions.
And ask yourself.
“What can I give them that nobody else can?”
That’s your positioning.
That’s your gap.
Now go fill it.
P.S. If you’re an agency owner working way too many hours and you want to see what The Agentic OS looks like, reply to this email with “SHOW ME” and I’ll send you a preview.
Not selling anything, just curious if this resonates with anyone besides me.