10 Startup Trend Analysis Prompts That Uncover Hidden Opportunities

The quality of your startup trend analysis is entirely determined by the quality of your research prompts. Most founders and analysts make the same mistake: they ask too broadly — "what's happening in AI?" — and get surface-level answers that everyone else has already read.

The prompts below are designed to uncover what isn't in the headlines: second-order trends, funding gaps, underserved customer segments, and timing signals that indicate a market window is opening right now.

The 10 Prompts

1. The Funding Signal Prompt
   Ask: "List all startups in [sector] that raised seed or Series A funding in the last 6 months. For each, identify: what problem they claim to solve, what differentiates their approach, and what this pattern reveals about where smart money is flowing."
2. The Incumbent Failure Prompt
   Ask: "What are the top 5 complaints enterprise customers have about the leading [sector] solutions? What pain points have remained unaddressed for 3+ years? Why have incumbents failed to fix them?"
3. The Adjacent Market Prompt
   Ask: "Which technologies or business models from [adjacent industry] have not yet been applied to [target sector]? What would it look like if they were? Who would be the natural first customer?"
4. The Timing Window Prompt
   Ask: "What regulatory changes, technology milestones, or demographic shifts in the next 24 months will change the competitive dynamics of [sector]? What business is impossible today but will be obvious in 2 years?"
5. The Underserved Segment Prompt
   Ask: "Which customer segments in [sector] are currently being served by legacy software, Excel spreadsheets, or manual processes? Why have they been overlooked? What would it take to serve them profitably?"
6. The Pricing Model Gap Prompt
   Ask: "What pricing models exist in [sector]? Are there customer segments whose willingness to pay is not currently matched by any product's pricing structure? What alternative models (usage-based, outcome-based, freemium) haven't been tried?"
7. The Geographic Arbitrage Prompt
   Ask: "Which [sector] solutions are dominant in the US/UK but have not yet expanded to [target geography]? Are the market conditions different enough to require a localised approach, or could a direct copy work?"
8. The Talent Signal Prompt
   Ask: "What job roles are being newly created at fast-growing companies in [sector]? What do these new roles reveal about where the market is heading? What tools do these people lack?"
9. The API Economy Prompt
   Ask: "Which companies in [sector] have recently launched APIs, developer programs, or platform initiatives? What does this reveal about their strategy? What third-party products could be built on top of these APIs?"
10. The Contrarian Opportunity Prompt
    Ask: "What does the consensus believe about [sector] that is likely wrong? What trend is being over-hyped? What trend is being under-estimated? What business would only work if the contrarian view is correct?"

How to Use These Prompts Effectively

These prompts work best when combined sequentially in a pipeline. Start with prompts 1 and 2 for grounding (what exists, what's failing), then move to prompts 3-5 for opportunity generation, then use prompts 6-10 for validation and stress-testing.