Brand as a differentiator?

🔴 It’s a bad idea for startups

For most startup markets (especially b2b)…Brand is just not important enough to customers to matter.

Customers care about how well you solve their problems.

💡 Even the most well-known brands today did NOT try and compete on brand in the early days.

Apple competed on price and UX with the Apple I priced at $666.66.

👉 They didn’t compete on brand (think differently) until much later.

Nike competed on price (low cost) and product innovation (lightweight shoe).

👉 They didn’t bring influencers and pop culture into the product until after they had success selling running shoes.

Google competed on tech (speed and reliability) and their simple UX.

👉 They didn’t promote “Do no harm” until after they were already a household name.

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For early-stage differentiation → What matters most is:

→ who you are helping (customer)

→ what you are helping them with (problem)

→ how well you solve a problem (solution)

🔥 Your focus should be on these three questions.