Most startups misunderstand who they are REALLY competing with…

They think they are ONLY competing with other startups.

This thinking is flawed — and tricky many founders into obsessing over what their “competitors” are doing.

They just raised money…

…"we better raise money." 👯‍♀️

They just changed their homepage messaging…

…"we gotta change ours." 👯‍♀️

They just hired a growth team…

…"we need a growth team." 👯‍♀️

You know who is NOT factored into this view of competition?

THE CUSTOMER.

More specifically, the customer’s perception of the competition (and you).

This is what matters most.

As the famous general Napoleon Bonaparte said: “Perception is reality”

Take Salesforce and HubSpot for example.

Media outlets and industry analysts try to convince us that they are going “head-to-head”…

(and to some degree this is true)

…but what they really mean is that they happen to be in the same product categories, and may be going after the same markets.

It doesn’t mean they should spend all their time focused on attacking each other — and that there is some big bake off in every customer deal.

If Salesforce wants to take market share of the SMB market...

...their marketing efforts will focus on breaking the perception that "Salesforce can only serve enterprise markets."

The same goes for HubSpot.

If they want to win more of the enterprise market...

...their marketing will focus on addressing the pain points of enterprise buyers.

And don’t get me wrong, there will be times when it does make sense to market directly against a competitor — but it’s only a component of the sales & marketing activities, not the end all, be all of their work.

———

We see this type of “fake competition” in the NFL all the time.

Take todays’ Superbowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

You’ll probably hear the announcers talking about “the battle between Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts”

The battle?

WHAT BATTLE?

The only time these guys will be on the field at the same time is to shake hands AFTER THE GAME IS OVER.

———

The final takeaway for startup founders:

Avoid the trap of chasing startups in your space — what they are doing doesn’t matter as much as you think.

Keep an eye on them, yes.

But keep your focus on your customers.

#competition #productmarketing