Find Competitors of Any Company and Measure Their Similarity with Google Sheets

Free Template + Step-by-Step Guide

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Finding and comparing similar companies is a tedious task that gets regularly performed by a range of professionals such as investors and founders mapping competitive landscapes or salesmen growing their lead funnel.

Thankfully, we can automate this process with modern tools.

Today, I share a comprehensive guide that combines two different approaches to identify similar companies at scale. Subsequently, I auto-generate summaries of their respective business descriptions and create a similarity matrix that allows you to spot the closest competitors with ease.

All in Google Sheets and without a need to code.

It’s 100% free and easy to replicate.

How to Get Started

1. Login to your Google Account and create a new Google Sheet

2. Add a name to your sheet, click on “Extensions” > “Apps Script”

Find Similar Companies via Google Programmable Search Engine and G2

3. Open the new tab “Apps Script” and replace the whole project with the code below (→ remove “myFunction{}”). Note that this approach uses G2 (peer review platform for software solutions) to search for similar companies and is thus most reliable for more mature companies.

/**
 * Find similar companies via G2
 *
 * @param {string} companyName - Name of the company
 * @returns {string} Result
 * @customfunction
 */


function SimilarCompanyG2(companyName) {

if (companyName == ""){return "Error - Input is empty"}

  // Replace these with your actual API key
  const API_KEY = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
  const SEARCH_ENGINE_ID = 'e298e2926913441fc';

  // Formulate the query to find top 10 alternatives of a company on G2's website
  searchQuery = "Top 10 " + companyName + "Alternatives & Competitors site:g2.com/products"
  
  // Construct the URL for the Google Custom Search JSON API
  searchUrl = `https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key=${API_KEY}&cx=${SEARCH_ENGINE_ID}&q=${encodeURIComponent(searchQuery)}`;

  // Send a GET request to the API
  response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(searchUrl, {method: 'get'});
  
  // Parse the JSON response
  data = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());

  // If there are any items in the response data
  if (data?.items?.length > 0) {
    competitorsList = data.items[0]?.pagemap?.listitem;
    
    // Log the competitors list
    console.log(competitorsList);
    
    // Filter competitors with a URL and a position, then map to their names
    competitors = competitorsList?.length > 0 ? competitorsList.filter(item => !!item.url && !!item.position).map(item => item.name) : "Not found";
    
    // Log the filtered competitors
    console.log(competitors);
    
    // If there are any competitors, return them as a comma-separated string, else return "Not found"
    return competitors?.length > 0 ? competitors.join(', ') : "Not found";
  } else {
    return "Not found";
  }
}

4. Rename your project to “Similar Companies G2”

5. Get a Custom Search API Key. Click on “Get a key” and follow the steps below.