The Holy Crap Reaction to Competition
Every company has competition. If you don’t think you have competition you’re wrong. It’s out there. And more is on its way.
There are pros and cons to keeping an eye on your competition, but obsessing over them is a mistake.
Still, when you’re working on a stealth startup, moving at a 100 miles a minute to get to market, and you think you’ve got a killer idea worth millions, you can’t help but feel stunned when you discover new competition.
It’s the “holy crap” reaction.
The “holy crap” reaction goes something like this:
- Someone tells you about a new company “in your space”, or you discover them on your own.
- You take a cursory look.
- You’re stunned by the slickness and “Web 2.0″ style of their website.
- You read their tagline and a bit of their messaging on the home page. It sounds a lot like what you’ve been talking about.
- You quickly glance at their feature set or demo, but by this time you’re too panicked to really look. You see a couple keywords and feature items that look similar to what you’re planning and you scream…
Holy Crap! They’re doing exactly what we’re doing!
Often, you’ll scream this out loud to your co-founders sitting nearby, and they’ll go through the motions, and get to the same conclusion. Hopefully no one jumps out any windows, or breaks into heaving sobs.
Ultimately, every company has competition, remember?
After fully engaging in the “holy crap” reaction for a few minutes, it’s time to calm down and investigate things a bit further. Most likely, you’ll draw these conclusions:
- They’re not doing exactly what we’re doing.
- They’re not that far ahead.
In order to truly get past the “holy crap” reaction to competition you need to have an ultra-clear understanding of your company’s purpose and value proposition.
It’s not about the competition. It’s all about you. When you look at competition and panic, restore your faith through your own company’s strengths; not the competitions’ weaknesses and differences. Without a clear purpose, value proposition and plan of attack for getting things done, you’ll get so rattled by the competition that you’ll stumble and possibly fail.
Holy crap.
I would have thought that finding competition is a healthy sign that the business is viable - if nobody else is doing something similar (or has plans to do so in future) then *why not*?
John - Thanks for stopping by and commenting. If there’s no competition at all, you definitely have to ask the question, “Why not?”
In most cases there is competition - and more than you realize - and that initial reaction, especially when you’re racing to launch, can be frightening. That’s the “holy crap” reaction.
“Someone beat us to it.”
“Someone stole our idea.”
That’s a very typical reaction when you haven’t launched your own business. Once you’ve launched, I think your reaction to competition would be different.
That was a very useful holy crap. I think it holds true for blogs and individuals too. Like there’s so many celebrity blogs or humor blogs that are just over and done with but people keep coming up with them because they want to get their personality out there.
Yu Yu - I’m not quite sure what you mean — how are celebrity blogs and humor blogs tied to finding competition and being shocked by it?
I thought it was “all about the customers”.
Nivi - I guess it depends what perspective you’re looking at things from. *grin*
Having said that, when looking at competition, you could look at how many customers they have, and who they are. One of the failings of many startups I’ve seen of late is that they launch with much fanfare but not much in the way of customers. For startups that need critical mass (i.e. lots of customers/traffic/etc.) to be successful, that’s a tough road. Yes, many can start small, but in some spaces there is a chicken and egg dilemma.
So customers do count. And they do pay the bills. So it’s all about them. But in this context, it’s all about you… *smile*
Hah, I’m so glad I don’t have original ideas, so I can’t meet with nosy holy crap
Funny - you hit it exactly on the head (except my panic moments can sometimes last a little longer)! The trick is to presume some detachment and look at the competitor in as objective a manner as possible. Then, build on that knowledge to make your product/service even better.
HAHAHA! I said the same thing (holy crap) when I found out about our competition.
Then, I just said to myself, “my the best company win” and I just focus on my company and what I can do to make things better for my customers.
LOL the picture of the guy hiding under a desk i hilarious. After Laughed I looked around I say my co workers actually looking at the same picture as me.
Single Grain - Were they looking at the picture or were they hiding under their desks? *grin*
Such moments are definitely scary and disheartening. I think the core of the issue is your belief in your ability to execute the concept better than anyone else, regardless of novelty.
The WOW factor will only carry you so far, the rest is pure execution, and that’s the key differentiator.
Mat - I’m with you. We’re agreeing again, scary.
When faced with the sudden shock of competition, just look inward, remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, why what you’re doing is great and keep doing it.
I have been working on a totally unique web-service not seen on the Internet for the last seven months.
Today I showed it to a investor over instant message. He liked the idea, but said the market isn’t ready for that yet. HuH???? This is an investor who has invested in Napster, Skype and Joost type technologies. Was the market ready for them?
http://www.techavid.com
What I meant was there’s so many blogs out there about celebrities and a lot of people I know are coming up with them because they think that they can earn money from those. But the really good ones are not the ones that copy and paste content but the ones that have their own personality. Like anyone can blog about Paris Hilton (in hopes that it brings visitors) but the blogs that will stand out will be the ones that have their own opinion and let their personality shine through — I think that’s the only way to stand out in the millions of blogs out there.
Ben - occasionally “holy crap” can be an objective, when you’re encouraging smaller firms to do environmental scanning, either opportunites (’good’ holy crap) or theats (’icky’ holy crap) can BOTH contibute to you making better decisions that you would have otherwise …
Thanks for the post!
Heh brilliant post!
I remember having this exact same Holy Crap reaction about a month ago related to a new fundraising initiative I was starting.
The creepy part is though, the competition was my age (under 25), went to the same Uni as myself, and (amazingly) was the brainchild of a good friend of mine’s arch nemesis! I heard about it through another friend.
The timing and circumstances were completely bizarre.
*sorry for multiple post, a less than sign killed off the rest of my original post
Ha ha, I love the pic of the guy under the desk. I have felt like that waaayyy too many times. Good post.
Brian - I’m not sure what environmental scanning is, but if you tell me “holy crap” is an objective, I believe you. Are you referring to composting or something of the sort? Or smaller companies doing a better job of being eco-friendly?
Greg - I feel like that guy under the desk quite a bit too, although it’s irritating in some ways to admit it…
Ben -
sorry! “environmental scanning” is, for smaller firms at least, the process of monitoring their marketplace for opportunities and threats in the larger view, and to avoid the “gee, I didn’t know that” response in a sales call (about a competing product or service) in the smaller view -
Brian
[…] For starters, don’t say, “What competition? We don’t have any“. There’s always competition. […]
I remember the first time I did a search and found the sites of other writers with the same outlook and philosophy I did. It’s definitely a “holy crap!” moment.
That said, I still felt my writing ability held my own against theirs–even if some of my competition had slicker packaging. For me, it’s added incentive to get a pro designer.