Okay, so outside of winning, this picture has nothing to do with this blog post. When I think of winning - I always think of this famous picture of Bobby Orr. In 1970, when I was 3 years old, Orr scored the winning goal of the Stanley Cup playoffs and this famous picture was taken. I was young, but I can still remember my dad and older brother screaming with joy. I could try to draw some bullshit anaology to the story, but this is just a pure mental digression for me.
Anyway, been a way for awhile – a long while. Facebook and Twitter have just been easier alternatives, but I read a great post by Chris Shipley on Demo.com that forced me to get back in the saddle again. A post about the number of times new entrepreneurs say they don't have any competitors.
Newbie entrepreneurs aren't the only ones guilty of making the we don't have any competitors claims. Early in my career I spent a good bit of time on consulting gigs for well known large Fortune 500s. On numerous occasions I had over confident senior managers look me in the eye and say their product/service really had no competitors.
In my experience, the companies that beat the snot out of competitors know what and who they are competing against. As Chris explains companies' either have (1) direct competitors (2) indirect competitors – where customers are solving their problem some other way or (3) a deadly "inertia" competitor where customers simply do nothing and choose not to use your product. Chris provides a funny war story where the founder of Intuit, Scott Cook, once waved a pen in the air and correctly noted that this primary competitor was a pen a checkbook.
I wholeheartedly agree with Chris when he says..."once you lay out your strategy the best validation of your competitive edge is customer data." As one of my engineering profs at West Point used to say – In god we trust, all others bring data - data such as site traffic, sales figures, and referral recommendations are important competitive validation points. Competition is just one risk to a business. But it can be managed by doing your homework. The best validation of your competitive edge is customer data.
So remember….You always have competitors. And if you don't, you probably don't have a market because there is no real problem big enough for anyone to be concerned about fixing.
And finally….your product is only better when customers say that it is better, especially when they say it with their money and actions.
