The Deadly Power of “Good Enough”



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Good Enough is an extremely powerful force that works against startups.

It’s easy to identify “problems” with market leaders. Take the recruitment space as an example. How many people look at big job boards like Monster and say, “They’re broken! They suck! They’re useless!” And then what do they do? They launch a startup to take on Monster. How about eBay? Google? Craigslist? Match.com? Take a look at any incumbent in a market and chances are you’ll find a bunch of startups that are taking them on … after all, the big guys suck, right?

Big companies do have their problems. They tend to be slow to innovate, they get bureaucratic, lazy, distracted, bloated and bored. They milk their revenue cows as long as they can, even if those cows are drying up.

But here’s the rub — often, they’re GOOD ENOUGH.

Good Enough is a powerful force. And startups regularly underestimate its power. So they go after the market leaders with features, functionality and strategies that aren’t meaningful enough to customers. They assume that what they’re doing – whether it’s a slicker UI, simpler system, social functionality, etc. – is an obvious win. And then Good Enough bites them in the ass.

This means the bar for startups to succeed at any real scale is way higher than the market leaders. The market leaders are already there, and even if they’re losing ground, it’s generally at a slow pace. Startups need to scale as fast as possible. They have to be 10x better than the market leader before anyone will really notice. And they have to be 100x more creative, strategic, sneaky and aggressive. Market leaders may be losing touch with their customers, but they know them better than anyone else. So startups have to work extra hard to catch up and get the customer information and validation needed to build their business. Startups can’t just look at the “obvious” flaws of the incumbents like a “crappy” design and assume that’s what needs fixing. They have to dig way deeper to find the real customer pain points and then make sure to address those quickly.

When looking at your startup or deciding whether to launch a startup, ask yourself, “Is the competition Good Enough?” If that’s the case it may very well explain why they remain in the lead while countless startups have tried to knock them off their pedestal. That shouldn’t stop you from attacking them, but don’t do it unless you really know how to beat the power of Good Enough.

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February 3, 2011 Posted in Startups by

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  • http://www.denisbaranov.com Denis

    Good Enough has sidekicks called “Fear of Change” and “Risk Aversion”. Old customers must be completely dissatisfied with the incumbents in order to just consider switching and then they need to be persuaded that a particular challenger not only fits the requirements but is also going to stick around forever and can be easily migrated to. Because of this startups must allocate far more resources to sales & marketing than to product design & development.

  • JonA

    Excellent article.

    What about “untapped potential”? While there may be a big incumbent in a certain market, if they’re no good, does a start-tup need to be 10x better to reach the people that turned away from the incumbent? If the potential market is very large, but the “big incumbent” only has captured a fraction of it so far, maybe the bar is still low?

  • http://twitter.com/public_auction ThePublicAuction.com

    Right on, Ben. We are such a start up, gearing up against a Goliath. What we’ve learned is to focus on a well defined niche, that is not served well by the big boys. You can’t be all at once, and do it on a shoe string budget.

    Chris @ http://www.thepublicauction.com

  • http://KyleClouse.com Kyle Clouse

    This is a great post. “Good is the enemy of Great”

  • http://twitter.com/mdeutschmtl Mike Deutsch

    … Wow, and I had only ever considered Good Enough as a weapon in the hands of a startup trying to grab a niche from the big boys. (see “The Good Enough Revolution” in Wired, Aug 2009) Nice little inversion & a good observation here, Ben.

  • http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

    The only market that I have ever seen people able to copy one of the big boys with much success is the current spate of Groupon Clones! That is one market where the barrier to entry is so low that people all over the world are able to take them on easily enough and as a result it is pretty much a race to the bottom!

  • http://www.magento-themes.jextn.com Magento Themes

    I think that the main problem is with big companies. Actually they do not value small customers and when the small customers get frustrated some of them come up with legal actions and rest understand that legal actions cannot do any good and start their own competing firm…

  • http://www.instigatorblog.com Benjamin Yoskovitz

    Mike – totally get where you’re coming from. When I started writing this post I wanted to say, “Good Enough” is good and bad for startups. But it got too confusing, so I focused on the negative side of things. When you’re building something, you do want to focus on “good enough” to some degree, which is in line with lean startup strategies. Although lean would probably argue more reasonably that you need to nail something GREAT that’s relatively small, not just be Good Enough at something small or a bunch of things.

  • http://www.instigatorblog.com Benjamin Yoskovitz

    Thanks for the comment. Damn those sidekicks!

  • http://www.integratedexhibits.com Trade Show Dispaly

    Good to Great. That was a good read.

  • http://www.microsourcing.com/disciplines/web-development.asp MicroSourcing

    I agree with the previous comment, the trouble with Good Enough is that it has minions who can really cause setbacks.

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  • http://www.instigatorblog.com Benjamin Yoskovitz

    I’d say the definition of a big incumbent is that they own a fairly sizeable piece of the market. If they don’t, they’re not a market leader.

    If people are actively turning away, a startup can grab those customers. But the startup has to REALLY understand WHY they’re turning away, because the startup may not be automatically addressing those reasons. And there have to be enough of them turning away for that to be interesting.

  • http://mylifemyhappiness.com/ Rina

    Hi Benjamin, I totally agree with your article above. Good enough is the startups for us to become entrepreneur.

    Looking for opportunities, take the ideas and initiatives, and realize the business.

  • http://thenoobdiary.com Abhineet

    One can’t underestimate a successful company, can we? They know the tricks as good as you, and can innovate any-time. But if they focus to rely on less of innovation and more of maintaining consistency, then they must have thought of it 100 times before foraying in.

  • rifatminhas

    This is beautiful! I really love the different colors. What a great decoration! I think I should try one. If only I had more time…
    Thanks
    http://WWW.changing mindset.com

  • rifatminhas

    Thanks for a great post with excellent points on social marketing strategies! I also love your Social Media Checklist.

  • http://hostingindia.org/ Web Hosting India

    Great post “Good Enough” excellent points on social marketing strategies! I also love your Social Media Checklist..

  • http://www.anyclean.co.uk Carpet Cleaning London

    I completely agree with your point of view. I liked the post as a whole.

  • http://www.trufortebusinessgroup.com Florida Business Brokers

    I like the post although I am all for exposing market leaders and the good enough mentally and replacing it with a new “better than”. Once that takes place good enough will never be good enough.

  • http://www.makemoneyonlineinfo.co.cc/ Jeff

    I like your reasoning. Taking an already established concept and adding “bells and whistles” gives the impression of a desperate copycat. To start at the beginining and rework the concept to introduce value is another matter. People tend to stick with what they know and if that is “good enough” for their immediate needs so be it. Sometimes best to leave well alone unless your UPS is outstanding.
    Great Blog, Thanks

  • Jeff

    Sorry meant USP in last comment

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Ben Yoskovitz
I'm VP Product at GoInstant.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it).

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