Last weekend I was at SxSW to give a talk on Startup Pivots at the Lean Startup event held there. It was an excellent event put on by Eric Ries and Dave McClure. All the stars of the game were there; I was honored to be included.
I have been trying to decrease the number of startup events that I speak at and attend this year so I can focus all my energy on Performable. Despite this I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to share tacos and margaritas with my friends down in Austin.
While I was there I experienced something that has happened to me many times before. It always goes down like this:
Stranger: (walks up to me cold) “Hi, I’m XYZ from startup ABC.”
Me: “Hello, nice to meet you.”
Stranger: “I’m a competitor of yours.”
Me: “No, you are not my competitor.”
At this point the stranger becomes really confused, it is clear that he has been following the daily changes at my company, so he believes he has a good handle on what we are working on.
So why don’t I see that startup as a competitor?
I believe a startup only has one real competitor, indifference.
People not caring enough about your product is your true competition, not some other startup.
Please stop sweating other startups in your market. (Stop reading Techcrunch please.) They do not matter. Always solve for making people care.
Who are your competitors?
Note: I wrote this post on my phone so please excuse any typos or errors.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Too funny. At one of my earlier startup we were (we thought) well funded with $1M (back when that was real money) but our main “competitor” raised $9M of what we called “dumb” money.
Then we kicked their *sses at what became our main reference account.
Had I been smarter I would have realized that we were selling different solutions to the same problem and were appealing to completely different customers inside the same segment.
IOW, we weren’t competitors. Today I’d find a way to cooperate with them on industry issues. Then I wasted a lot of time and energy on them.
Live and learn.
-XC
Totally true David. Real people, paying real money for real value. In-action is the competition.
Great post. I often remember obsessing about other early-stage competitors and trying to differentiate from them when the real need was just to sell to any of the few real customers that were out there in our small but growing market. In new markets the competitors are often better served by co-operating to some degree.
You explained this to the stranger, right? It’s not fair to expect him to know you have a different definition of the word…
Michael,
I definitely did, and always try to, but that doesn’t mean they agree or understand my reasoning.
I would appreciate that guy’s intention to clearly declare himself honestly though being in same industry, considering himself as worthy to introduce as competitor , His trait says he is good in making contact, sales and marketing of his product… I would definitely keep in touch with him.
hi david i was at the panel where you shared this and resonated a lot with your quote.
recently i have been thinking of people/companies that work on similar products as validation rather than competition. then i heard your quote and i realized that it is the complement to this mindset.
i’m then motivated by not just the desire to please the people that i’m targeting with my product but also the confidence that others are working and seeing the same needs as me.
Thanks for the comment! Sorry we didn’t get to meet in Austin.
I like your thinking on this, good stuff, thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
David
My competitors are myself. If I don’t figure out what my users want then they aren’t going to use what I make for them. Figuring out what they want boils down to:
- asking them questions
- learning from their answers
- figuring out if I asked the right questions to begin with (this one I’m struggling with)
As far as other companies in my space I take this as:
- validation I’m going in the right general direction
- can watch what they do to see if they’re doing something wrong
But I still look to the users I already have as my guidance for what we’re doing right (or wrong) and adjusting from there. They joined us on this journey for a reason, figuring out exactly why they did is the key to our survival and eventual flourishing.
Very good observation – having done 2 start ups and being from a strategy background always fretted about competition (first to market mindset) and when someone entered fell back on its a big enough market for two of us. Not quite what you said
But saying that every angel and VC who saw a competitor on our space for them it just upped the risk in their eyes.
The education must continue across the table as well
Absolutely. So early in the game, start-ups in the same field are so much more valuable to each other if there’s some sort of open communication and sharing (not secrets or technology, but good willed, common interest information).
There is so much more to gain by comparing yourself to the problem that needs solving.
Fantastic advice. I’m guilty of reading all the TechCrunch-y sites, and every time I see a new startup that could be a competitor I start wondering if the market is getting too saturated for my offering. Then I just think “No, mine’s better” and move on.
But your right. I’ve gained nothing from knowing about them, except maybe a little extra motivation.
Sun Tzu Art of War is time less
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
Cliff Elam: For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
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