Changelog
Every step from the first plan to today. 9 phases, each tested live before the next. Times are India time (IST).
An honest buying guide to competitive intelligence tools: the five types (enterprise platforms, lighter tools, page monitors, SEO tools and social listening), who each is for, how they're priced, questions to ask in a demo, a free starter setup, and where Riposte fits and where it doesn't.
A new blog post on how to build a sales battlecard and keep it up to date, with a one-page template you can copy with one click. Every blog post now also answers 10 common buyer questions at the end.
Blog posts now have a cover image, a reading bar, numbered sections, a table of contents that follows you, share buttons, app screenshots in a browser frame, tip and example boxes, "read next" links, a bottom line, open-and-close FAQs and related posts. Image call-to-action cards can be changed from one file. The blog page has a featured post, cards with images and topic filters, and this changelog is grouped by week with filters. The site header now has a clear line under it and stays at the top.
Riposte now uses Google Analytics to count visits, waitlist joins and sign-ups, and is set up in Google Search Console so its pages can be found in search. The privacy policy explains both. Also fixed a garbled message people saw after joining the waitlist.
A new page under Feed shows only news about your competitors, sorted into Launches, Partnerships, Awards & recognition, Funding, Leadership, Trouble and Mentions, so big moments like a Gartner or Forrester placement don't get lost between website changes. Each story still says why it matters for you and what to do.
News about your competitors now comes from NewsData.io, a news service built for apps. The old sources kept refusing Riposte's daily checks. Each story still becomes one card that says why it matters and what to do.
Sign-up, login link and password reset emails come from noreply@useriposte.com in a proper Riposte design, and alerts and weekly digests come from alerts@useriposte.com. They're less likely to land in spam, and every user now gets their alerts.
You can now sign up and log in with your Google account in one click, on the login page at useriposte.com. Email and password still work as before.
The login page now has "Forgot your password?". Riposte emails a reset link, and the link opens a page to choose a new password, then takes you straight to your feed. Sign-up, login link, password reset and change-of-email emails now have a proper Riposte design: logo, a clear button, what happens next, and a note on what to do if you didn't ask for it.
Riposte now lives at useriposte.com. Links in emails, Slack messages, the blog, the sitemap and invites all point to the new address. The old riposte-eta.vercel.app address still works.
Every competitor now has a News source that searches GDELT, a free, open news database covering thousands of news sites, including tech and business press and press release wires. Articles about the same story become one card, labelled Launch, Partnership, Recognition (Gartner, Forrester, awards), Funding, Leadership change, Trouble or Pricing. News about something else with the same name is marked as noise. As always, each card says why it matters for you and what to do, and recognition cards give sales a ready reply.
Upload your one-pagers, positioning docs, case studies and past posts (PDF or Word, up to 10 MB, 10 files in the beta). After each upload a check card shows the pages and words read, a short summary, the first lines and any warning, so you can see it worked. Scanned PDFs are read by Google's AI. Every signal, action kit, brief, comparison and AI search answer now uses your files, and briefs build on topics you've already covered instead of repeating them.
Who Riposte is for, a fourth problem (slow, with no sense of how much a change matters), "Tell it about your product" as the first step, impact levels, and connected moves.
New beta users get a welcome card with their allowance, then a slim strip on every page showing competitors and tracked prompts used. Approving someone gives a one-click copy of the invite message.
Riposte opens as a free beta. People join the waitlist and are approved in small groups, with limits of 5 competitors and 10 tracked prompts each. A Give feedback form asks what you'd miss most and what it's worth to you, so pricing comes from real users.
The home page now lists content briefs and "why they're winning", says Riposte shows who AI recommends to your buyers and why, and links to the blog and changelog.
It now reads the AI answer itself: what each competitor is picked for, whether your product says the same, and what to publish to compete. Recent moves show only when there are some. Briefs use these reasons, and AI calls wait and retry through busy minutes instead of failing.
Answers were asked but not saved because of a missing database column, and the error was hidden. Save errors now show plainly, and the first real run is in: Crayon and Klue named in 4 of 5 answers, Riposte in none yet.
A tour of every feature, plus deep dives on action kits, AI visibility and living comparison pages.
One click turns a trend, or an AI answer where competitors are named and you aren't, into a ready-to-write brief: keyword, intent, angle, quick answer, outline and FAQs. AI visibility gaps now show the named competitors' recent moves.
A blog with SEO and AEO built in (quick answer box, FAQs, article and FAQ schema), this changelog, an about page, plus sitemap, robots and llms.txt.
Tabs for Today, This week, Later and Done, a list on the left and the full action with its draft on the right.
Sidebar navigation, a list-and-detail feed with tabs, searchable and paged tables for 50+ competitors, side-by-side layouts, and password login.
When web search isn't available, answers fall back to the model's own knowledge, clearly labelled, with retries when Google is busy.
Fair 'you vs them' pages written from facts on the competitor's site, flagged out of date when they change pricing or product, updated in one click.
Tracked buyer questions are asked in Gemini. See which products get named, in what order, which sites the answers rely on, and where competitors are named and you aren't.
Turns keywords into commercial-intent buyer prompts in Shield and Spear topics, with no brand names, checked by rules, and exported as CSV for Profound.
Reset a competitor's signals, or everything, without losing the pages being watched.
Sitemap dates show when an old page is rewritten. Riposte compares its title and headings before and after, and flags shifts like a how-to guide becoming a 'best tools' comparison.
A page that redirects to the homepage is never accepted as pricing or blog. Answer pages built for AI search are recognised, and large sitemaps are read in full.
Related changes by one competitor are joined into one story. Topics that several competitors start writing about are flagged as trends.
A competitor checked late the day before was skipped by the morning run. Daily pages are now due after 12 hours instead of 20.
Decided against real-time checking. Competitors rarely change by the hour; daily checks catch what matters, keep costs low and are polite to their websites.
How often each competitor publishes, what kinds of pages they have, and the topics they keep writing about, grouped by AI.
Every action from every kit in one place. Finishing a kit marks its signal reviewed, and the weekly digest lists the responses your team shipped.
A new product profile field, so talk tracks and battlecards lead with your real strengths instead of generic lines.
When Google's AI is overloaded, Riposte retries and falls back to a lighter model, and shows the real reason if it still fails.
For each signal: what to create, who owns it, where to share it and how urgent it is, with a first draft ready to copy.
The demo competitor raised its price from $49 to $59. Riposte caught it, explained it as high impact and emailed the alert.
A fictional company, Acme Insights, whose pricing, blog and changelog change every 10 minutes, so every feature can be tested end to end.
Each real change is explained against your product: what changed, why it matters, what to do and how important it is. High-impact changes are emailed, and a digest arrives every Monday.
Reads each page every morning, keeps only the main content, compares it with the last check and ignores noise like dates, banners and menus. Respects each site's robots.txt.
Describe your product and buyers once. Add a competitor by its website, and Riposte finds its pricing page, blog, feed, release notes and sitemap.
Login, a secure database, and a landing page with a waitlist, live on the web.
Wrote down the problem from my own PMM work, designed the user flow and screens, and split the build into nine phases, each tested live before the next.