Bear

What do they actually do

Bear is a SaaS tool that shows companies when public AI agents (e.g., ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity) mention or cite their brand and competitors, which sources those answers come from, and where they are being outranked. It then suggests concrete actions to improve visibility, like topics to write about, sources to target, and outreach to run (usebear.ai; YC launch post).

Bear collects data by simulating real user queries in AI interfaces (not via partner APIs) to capture live answers and citations, then provides dashboards, weekly reports, and workflows for content and outreach (including drafting posts and email templates on paid tiers) to help teams close gaps and track progress (usebear.ai/pricing; usebear.ai/blog).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Growth or marketing lead at a mid-market B2B SaaS company: They can’t see when AI agents mention their product or how often competitors outrank them in AI answers, so they don’t know which topics to prioritize to win visibility (usebear.ai; YC launch post).
• SEO or content marketer responsible for organic acquisition: Traditional SEO tools don’t show which pages AI engines cite, making it hard to reverse‑engineer the content and sources that drive AI recommendations (usebear.ai/blog; usebear.ai).
• Small marketing team with limited headcount: Monitoring multiple AI engines, creating tailored content, and running outreach is manual and time‑consuming; they need automation to scale AEO work without new hires (usebear.ai/pricing; usebear.ai/blog).
• Enterprise product/brand or growth team: They need precise, frequent source attribution and regional coverage to manage brand risk and tie AI mentions to revenue impact; require integrations and higher‑cadence data (usebear.ai/pricing; usebear.ai/blog).
• Agencies and growth consultants running client programs: They struggle to run repeatable playbooks and prove ROI for AI visibility without a tool that surfaces opportunities and automates content/outreach at scale (usebear.ai; usebear.ai/pricing).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run short, white‑glove pilots for 8–10 high‑fit B2B SaaS teams (YC alumni and known mid‑market leads), handling setup, prompt simulations, and an action plan in exchange for structured feedback and a case study (usebear.ai; YC launch post).
• First 50: Productize the pilot playbook with public demos and step‑by‑step guides; host weekly webinars for growth/SEO leads and run targeted cold outreach using Bear’s own outreach templates to convert demos into paid trials (usebear.ai/blog; usebear.ai/pricing).
• First 100: Launch an agency/channel partner program with rev share and ready‑made materials, finalize self‑serve onboarding/templates, and add focused LinkedIn/SEM plus selective event sponsorships to reach more mid‑market accounts; leverage case studies and partner leads to improve trial‑to‑paid conversion (usebear.ai/pricing; usebear.ai/blog).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Bear sits within SEO/martech budgets: martech spend is ~$148B (2024) and SEO software is in the tens of billions; the closest narrow category, AI‑powered SEO/AEO, is estimated around the low single‑digit billions (e.g., ~$2.3B in 2025) (Forrester; Grand View Research; MarketGrowthReports).

Bottom-up calculation:

Using Bear’s published Basic price of $199/mo (~$2,388/yr) and a buyer pool that includes ~30,000 SaaS companies plus agencies, illustrative scenarios are: 500 customers ≈ $1.2M ARR; 3,000 ≈ $7.2M ARR; 10,000 at ~$5k ARPC (mix of Pro/Enterprise) ≈ $50M ARR (usebear.ai/pricing; Exploding Topics; adoption signal: SEMrush ~117k paying customers).

Assumptions:

• Basic plan remains ~$199/mo and available to smaller teams (usebear.ai/pricing).
• Initial buyer pool anchored in ~30k SaaS companies plus agencies and adjacent teams (Exploding Topics).
• ARPC can rise above Basic via Pro/Enterprise mix as product/integrations mature.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Profound: AEO-focused platform for monitoring and improving brand visibility in AI answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews), positioned for enterprises; direct category peer to Bear (site).
• Semrush: Broad SEO suite used by a large installed base for keyword research, competitive analysis, and content; relevant because many buyers already budget for SEO tools (≈117k paying customers) (source).
• Ahrefs: Popular SEO platform focused on backlinks, site audits, and content research; an adjacent toolset many Bear prospects already use alongside AEO efforts.
• BrightEdge: Enterprise SEO platform with AI-driven features and large-company adoption; competes for the same enterprise budgets Bear targets over time.
• Surfer: Content optimization tool used by SEO teams to plan and draft pages; adjacent to Bear’s content workflows aimed at influencing AI citations.