Following your competitors is not smart. Here’s why!

It’s very common for companies to build stuff their competitors already have and the only reason they have is that their competitors offer it.

Building stuff that your competitors have is a blind approach.

Your competitors might have a bunch of features that you don’t have — while they may have a roadmap of how they want to get rid of some of them, you might have a roadmap to build them! Sounds crazy, and such things do happen.

So, following your competitors blindly is not smart at all — instead you should be assessing your competitors’ offerings and gauge what you need to do to move ahead of the competition without losing sight of your vision. This way you’d position yourself in a leader’s spot and that’ll take you closer to your vision faster.

And as someone said it: ‘Don’t copy competitors to the point of losing your own identity as a brand.‘

Steps to approach competitive lead position without copying them

1. Identify who your direct competitors are
2. Look into what they have
3. Assess how best their offerings/features fit your vision and strategy
4. Identify what are some of the leading alternatives
5. Consider building a feature only if it absolutely takes you at least one step closer to your cohesive larger vision
6. Plan execution with a strategic differentiation mindset around why your solution should be 10x better than the leading competitors’ and other alternatives
7. Execute with superior design and attention to detail

As Simon Sinek correctly put it, ‘The goal is not to “beat” our competition but rather to improve ourselves.‘

To summarize, the point I’d like us to recognize is that you shouldn’t worry about the competition more than losing sight of how your product can lead the market.

Would love to hear your thoughts!