background preloader

Concurrence et marchés naissants

Facebook Twitter

How startups can deal with competition from a strategy and Marketing standpoint. Peur de la compétition. Par Mano Malu (chroniqueur exclusif) - Présidente de Mano Consultant La compétition. En tant qu’entrepreneur, on en a peur. On la surveille. Et c’est vrai il est primordial de connaître son marché et ses compétiteurs afin de se bien positionner. Mais l’effet inverse est aussi néfaste. À force de trop analyser ses compétiteurs, il est facile de reste paralyser par leurs mouvements et de s’enliser dans l’inaction. Pour illustrer ce propos, prenons pour exemple la compétition dans une course de chevaux. Imaginez-vous alors dans la course de votre entreprise à coté de vos compétiteurs. Ne vous détrompez pas, je ne veux en aucun cas ignorer la compétition et faire la politique de l’autruche. Ce que je veux dire, c’est que un moment donné, arrêtons la paranoïa. Notre focus doit être sur notre entreprise et la faire grandir, augmenter notre base de client et notre profitabilité.

Arrêtons de nous comparer aux autres, d’attendre que quelqu’un approuve ou valide nos actions. There are lots of good reasons to abondon a project Having a little competition is not one of them. Forget about your competitors just focus on your customers. Great Entrepreneurs focus on their mission rather than their competitors.

I’ve noticed a tendency of some early stage tech companies to be excessively distracted by what their competitors are doing, or what they think they are doing. Understanding the landscape and differentiating your product – or approach to the market - is of course essential and there could be a number of areas of head-on competition. Competing for key words on Google as key distribution channels are examples of these. But, the overriding focus of the CEO must be the customer/user not the competitor. The questions to be answered are: · What is our real mission· What would make a better experience· How can we deliver our service/product better, cheaper, faster?

My own experiences have brought home the importance of this focus. Joe Corre, co-founder of Agent Provocateur, never looked at a competitor’s product! Steve Jobs at Apple clearly comes from a similar school. The same can be said of Daniel Ek at Spotify. Laurent Pantanacce: Excellente phrase de Gille... Indifference is the true Startup Competitor. Last weekend I was at SxSW to give a talk on Startup Pivots at the Lean Startup event held there.

It was an excellent event put on by Eric Ries and Dave McClure. All the stars of the game were there; I was honored to be included. I have been trying to decrease the number of startup events that I speak at and attend this year so I can focus all my energy on Performable. Despite this I couldn't turn down the opportunity to share tacos and margaritas with my friends down in Austin. While I was there I experienced something that has happened to me many times before. It always goes down like this: Stranger: (walks up to me cold) "Hi, I'm XYZ from startup ABC. " Me: "Hello, nice to meet you. " Stranger: "I'm a competitor of yours. " Me: "No, you are not my competitor. " At this point the stranger becomes really confused, it is clear that he has been following the daily changes at my company, so he believes he has a good handle on what we are working on.

So why don't I see that startup as a competitor? You never want to be completely alone at what you do. Competition is good for everyone. Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no.