The real alternatives, including doing nothing

A competitor slide is usually a list of rivals someone believes matter. Exit answers are a record of what people actually did. When the two disagree, trust the record.

Since the Club launched in summer 2026, Nazar asked every member who cancelled where they were going. Forty answers to September: stopped practising for now 17, a free AI chat app 9, a private tutor once or twice a month 6, another school's speaking club 5, a free meetup or language exchange 3.

The slide's alternative, another school's club, was chosen by 5 of 40, 12.5%: one leaver in eight. Stopping altogether (42.5%) and the free app (22.5%) are far bigger. Forty answers is a small sample, so read it as a direction, not a precise split, but the direction is clear: the slide shows the smallest part of the picture.

Buyers don't shop by category. They have a job to get done, and they compare every way of doing it, whether or not it looks like your product.

For Club members the job is speaking English with confidence. Another school's club does that job; so does a private tutor twice a month, a free AI chat app, a weekly meetup, and, for some, simply not practising for a while.

Competitor slides tend to show only same-category rivals because they're the easiest to find: same name for the product, prices on a website. That makes the slide tidy and the price decision wrong. Start from the job, then list every way buyers get it done, and only then ask what each costs them.

Sorting alternatives into four kinds makes sure none is forgotten:

1. The same kind of offer from someone else: another school's speaking club at 390 a month.
2. A different kind of offer for the same job: a private tutor twice a month.
3. Do it yourself: a free AI chat app, videos, weekly meetups.
4. Doing nothing: pausing practice for a while.

Only the first is a competitor in the usual sense. In the Club's exit answers the fourth kind is the largest (17 of 40), the third next (9 app + 3 meetups = 12), then tutors (6) and other clubs (5).

Each kind needs a different response: a rival club is compared feature by feature; a tutor on depth versus price; DIY on what it can't do; doing nothing on what the problem costs.

If the biggest alternative is doing nothing, and nothing is free, it seems the ceiling should drop to zero. It doesn't, because doing nothing has a cost even though it has no price: the problem stays.

Take a member who pauses the Club a month before an English speaking exam. They save 450, but that's the price they don't pay, not a cost of doing nothing. The costs are what the problem keeps doing: going into the exam without speaking practice, a lower score on the speaking part, and the speaking habit built over spring fading away.

That cost is the real reference for a buyer whose alternative is doing nothing. Pricing work here is about making the cost visible ("freezing in the speaking part"), not about competing with zero.

Not every "doing nothing" means the price was wrong. Read why and when people stopped before drawing a price conclusion.

Nazar noticed that some members who "stopped for now" left in June and rejoined in September. They didn't switch to anything cheaper: they paused for a quiet summer and came back when school and work picked up again. For them the Club lost to the season, not to a rival or to the price.

Cutting the price wouldn't have kept them; a summer pause option or a better autumn welcome-back might. That's a timing question for a later module. The lesson for now: an exit is evidence about price only when the answer points to price, a cheaper option, or the value not being worth it.

A cheap substitute threatens only the buyers whose job it actually does. Nine members left the Club for a free AI chat app, and Nazar's first thought was to make the Club cheaper. The better question: what doesn't the app do?

Club members practise with real people in a group, with a host who corrects them. An app gives solo practice, not that. So:

• for members who want live speaking, the app isn't their alternative: a tutor or another club is, priced far above zero;
• for members who mostly used the Club's AI partner, the app might be.

Alternatives differ by segment, and so do ceilings. One cheap substitute is a reason to look at who uses what, not to cut the price for everyone. That split will matter when the Club's plans are redesigned later in the course.

Exit answers cover only people who leave. To learn the alternatives of people who stay, ask new members what they did before joining: what they tried, what it cost, why they stopped.

Past behaviour is evidence; opinions about rivals are not. Compare:

• "Before you joined, what were you doing to practise speaking, and what did it cost you?" reveals the real alternative and its price.
• "Which school do you think is our best competitor?" asks for an opinion the member may never have formed.
• "Would you pay more for the Club than for an app?" invites a polite yes.
• "Do you agree that live speaking is better?" leads the answer.

One good question in the onboarding form, asked of every new member, builds the evidence the competitor slide never had.

Free-text answers about alternatives pile up fast. An AI tool can sort them into the four kinds in minutes, and that draft is genuinely useful. But the categories feed a price decision, so the sorting gets a human check: a person reads every answer the tool was unsure about and spot-checks a sample of the rest.

One line is never crossed: the tool must not invent answers for people who didn't reply. Generated "respondents" are not evidence of what anyone did, however realistic they sound. A small real sample beats a large made-up one.

How it fits together: start from the job, list all four kinds of alternative, read evidence of what people actually did, price against the cost of the problem, and remember different segments have different alternatives. The next lesson puts these alternatives on one picture: benefit against price.