SWOT Analysis
A Starting Point for Strategic Decisions
See what works and what doesn't. Build your next project around opportunities and spot the challenges you need to tackle.
.png)
What Is SWOT Analysis?
SWOT analysis is a visual framework for strategic planning that examines the key factors that may impact your project: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Running a SWOT analysis helps you understand what you're good at, what needs work, what may help you, and what might be a problem. With that, you can decide what to focus on next, how to allocate resources, or what risks you should plan around.
Four Elements of SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Your internal capabilities that give you an advantage. Think proprietary tech, outstanding ideas, talented team, fast execution, solid founding, exceptional UX, or unique offering.
Weaknesses
Internal limitations and areas that require improvement. The lack of experience, skill gaps, operational inefficiencies, small market presence, or lack of a defined focus are all examples of weaknesses.
Opportunities
External factors and events that you can capitalize on. These may be customer trends, emerging technologies, partnership opportunities, untapped markets, or even a well-timed launch.
Threats
These are external risks, both existing and potential. Threats include current competitors and regulations, but also possible shifts in customer preferences, supply chain disruptions, or adverse market trends.
When to Use SWOT Analysis?
Imagine you're a part of a small team of software developers and designers working together to build a budgeting app for freelancers and small businesses. How can SWOT analysis help you make better decisions at key stages of your project?.png)
Launching a New Business or Project
Before you start investing time and money into realizing your idea, a SWOT analysis will help you see what plays to your advantage and what stands in the way.
In our example, your strengths lie in coding and software design skills. The threat is an abundance of similar apps. Knowing that, you can focus on using your expertise to create unique features that will give your product an edge over competitors.
.png)
Planning a Major Business or Product Shift
Run a SWOT analysis before you commit to a big step like rewriting your codebase or redesigning the UI to see what you need to make the change work and assess its potential.
Let's say you want to add automated tax estimation to your app. This is an opportunity, as the feature will improve UX and help your app stand out. But to use it to your advantage, you'll have to overcome a weakness: the lack of tax law expertise.
.png)
Building a Marketing Strategy
As you shape your promotion plan, use a SWOT analysis to decide what to highlight, what to avoid, and which marketing partnerships are worth pursuing.
In this case, your strength is that the app is built by entrepreneurs who understand real income challenges. Partnering with popular business newsletters is an opportunity to overcome your weakness: a small social media following.
.png)
Entering a New Market
When considering expanding into a new market, a SWOT analysis will highlight factors that pose a chance or a risk, like market maturity, local user needs, and regional competitors.
For our budgeting app, your weakness is the limited knowledge of local tax rules. At the same time, established finance apps with loyal users pose a threat to your expansion. With that, you can prioritize localizing tax calculation features and promoting your product in local freelancer and small business media for easier entry.
.png)
Evaluating and Improving Performance
Even when you don't plan anything new, you might carry out regular SWOT analyses to assess your processes, see what works, and what could be improved.
For example, your strength is a smooth development workflow that allows you to release updates quickly. A weakness is a lack of structured processes to collect user feedback after each release, making it harder to spot usability issues.
How Can SWOT Analysis Help Specific Professions?
Business Executives
Whether you're a startup founder or a corporate C-level, apply SWOT for strategic planning. Use strengths like proprietary technology to guide investment, and opportunities such as untapped markets to plan expansion.
Project Managers
Anticipate risks and align project goals with your capabilities before execution begins. Identify strengths like team experience and threats such as limited developer availability.
UX/UI Designers
Evaluate the product and UX strategy. Spot strengths such as a clean design system, and weaknesses like inconsistent usability across devices. Recognize opportunities like emerging design trends or new accessibility standards.
Marketers
Refine campaigns and product messaging. Capitalize on strengths like strong brand recognition, and address threats such as a competitor targeting the same audience. Focus on the right channels, audiences, and UVPs.
Tips and Tricks for Creating SWOT Analysis
Best Practices for SWOT Analysis
- Use facts and data: When possible, back up your claims with market research, user feedback, or sales figures to make your SWOT analyses more accurate and free from bias.
- Be specific: Replace vague points like “good team” or “strong competition” with “experienced backend developer” and “two major competitors launched similar features in the last six months”.
- Prioritize: Order points in your SWOT analysis by priority. Address the most important ones first, or pick just one from each category to keep your focus.
- Gather diverse perspectives: Include people with different roles and expertise to avoid bias and get a more complete picture for your SWOT analysis.
Creating better SWOT analysis charts in Excalidraw
- Color-code: Assign colors to specific topics and insights from different teams, e.g., blue for marketing, green for product, and yellow for user feedback. This will help you organize ideas and see which areas are over- or underrepresented.
- Plan next moves: Match each strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat with actionable follow-ups. List them in a separate "Next steps" box on your SWOT board and use it to create a roadmap for the project.
- Add supporting links: Include links to reports, research, and user surveys to back up the claims in your SWOT analysis and keep all relevant information easily accessible.
Wrapping Up
SWOT analysis gives you a clear picture of where your project stands by mapping your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a simple way to understand what’s working well, what needs attention, and where new chances or challenges may appear.
Whether you’re validating a new app idea, iterating on your MVP, or considering shifting to a new business model, SWOT analysis will help you move forward with clarity and confidence.
Business Use or Teamwork? Try PLUS Features
💬 Comments: Exchange ideas and feedback with the entire team directly on your SWOT matrix for smoother collaboration.
🎙️ Voice hangouts and screenshare: Organize online, real-time SWOT workshops without the need for extra tools.
📺 Presentations: Instantly turn your SWOT analysis whiteboard into shareable slides to present insights and align your team.
😎 Unlimited scenes: Create as many boards as you need for your project: mind maps, flowcharts, competitive analysis, and more, all in a single online space.
🤓 Work organization: Keep collaboration structured with user accounts, view-only permissions, team workspaces, and organized scene collections.