I have seen A LOT of pitches, and competition is ALWAYS included in them. After all, understanding your competition is important and it signals to investors that you know your market. It's natural for startups to want to be better than their competition, but the problem is when they start to obsess about it. Let's take a look at why startups make this mistake and what things they should be focused on instead.
Know Your Competition Don't Obsess About it
Knowing your competition is important, but obsessing about it is where most startups go wrong. Most companies fail because of self-implosion well before they get blown up by a competitor. Especially if you are competing against other startups, it's highly unlikely that you both have the capital, scale, speed, and support to go head-to-head on every single prospective customer. The more time you spend trying to figure out what your competition is doing, means there is less time to spend working on your product or listening to your customers. Spend your time and effort figuring out what your customer wants and then figure out how to get them a product that solves that problem as quickly as possible. Who cares if your competition choses to solve the same problem slightly differently than you, it doesn't matter. Who cares how many customers they have compared to you, it doesn't matter. If you worry too much about competition, then you will almost certainly find yourself closing up shop due to self-implosion.
Keeping Things in Perspective - Focus on the Things that Matter
So if competitors are the wrong thing to focus on, then what are the right things? The answers are: your PRODUCT and your CUSTOMERS. Having a great product that customers love is the goal that your startup should strive for. It's better to have ten customers with a great product than 100 customers with just a decent product. It's also better to solve a major pain point for customers as opposed to minor annoyance. Focusing on these two things are how you build a brand and ultimately customer loyalty. Loyal customers are much less likely to leave you, even if your competitor does one or two things a little better than you.
Summary
Understand your competitors but don't obsess over them. Remember most business fail on their own long before they are wiped away by a competitor. Focus on the most important things for your business, mainly your product and your customer. If you are having trouble focusing on the right things, reach out to us at InfleXion Point. We are happy to help!
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