Welcome to the Dreamit Dose. In the next five minutes, we'll talk about
how 80% of startups make huge mistakes when talking about the competition.
And it's deadly critical that you get this right.
Luckily, it's pretty easy to fix. Let's dive in.
The first mistake I see entrepreneurs make,
is they truly don't even understand who the competition is.
They haven't exhaustively done a search.
The number of times I meet with a startup they tell me who their competition is
I do one detailed Google search. I flip my Macintosh around and say
wait a second what about these other three? You haven't even mentioned them
and I'll say, I don't even know who those are.
I mean, did you spend any time?
On this issue, don't be like an ostrich and stick your head in the sand.
Because you're gonna get run over by a big truck, and that's gonna
be an investor that you meet with that knows more about the competition
than you do.
I mean it's like when you were a little kid right, and you being in your
dark room and you're not going to open the door to the closet because if
you don't look the boogey man won't be there.
This is the boogey man, embrace it.
Search for the competition. Make sure you understand it.
Keep your ear to the ground for new competitors emerging,
and embrace that with strong emotional intelligence.
Now the question is, once you know that information.
What do you do with it?
Well let me tell you where not to start. And that's with the magic quadrant.
There is nothing magical about it. Don't use them if you're trying to differentiate.
Why? Can you only differentiate on two axis?
I mean it's so artificial. It's complete bullshit.
If you want to show how you're unique and you're different,
you're not going to use a magic quadrant.
It's gone. It's over. It's dead. And oh by the way,
you can throw its friend the venn diagram out the window as well.
I know I'm going fast. Please leave your questions in the comments
and make sure to subscribe. We have a lot more coming.
So we talked about what not to do.
Now let's talk about what you should do.
And that's going to be, showing your competition in a table and grid format.
Now let's break that down
and talk about what you actually do inside the table.
First, the columns are gonna be the individual companies
and you're gonna go first.
And by the way, I'm assuming if you're watching this you read and speak English.
We read left to right. That means you go first and leftmost column.
The competitors go next to you going to the right.
What order do those competitors go in? Pretty easy to know.
If I asked you, who are the top competitors
your customers or investors are going to ask about first?
They, in priority order, are going to be the next columns right next to you.
Because you're going to spend most of your time
differentiating over your two to three biggest competitors.
That's how you're going to handle that.
Next. Let's talk about what you're gonna do in the rows.
And those rows are going to be the benefits that you deliver.
Not the features. What are the benefits you're delivering
to that end user or that end customer?
As you talk about the benefits, another big question that comes up is,
what is that order?
Pretty simple. I have a question for you.
What's your biggest and strongest value proposition?
What's your biggest differentiator?
Those are the benefits that should come at the top and almost in a sorted order.
What are those benefits from top to bottom?
Strongest benefits up top, strongest differentiators up top, coming down.
Next. Let's talk about what do you do in the middle of the chart?
Pretty straightforward. First of all, for all of those benefits we talked about,
try to make sure they're quantitative not qualitative.
So if you say faster, I'm going to want you to start talking
about how much faster you are. Don't just use that description faster.
But as you fill out the middle of the chart, what I want you to think about is,
sure you're going to put checkmarks for where all the things that you have
as a benefit for your particular product and maybe your competitors.
But here's what I don't want you do. Don't litter up and muck up the chart
with lots of X's where it doesn't fit,
or the functionality or benefit isn't there.
Just leave it blank.
Open up the chart. Make it cleaner.
Make it easier to read and easier to process.
If you have to, you can use harvey balls.
If you're 100%, it's a solid ball. If you're only 50%, it's a 50% ball.
Or maybe there's a number in there.
But if your competition doesn't have the capability, just leave it blank.
And remember, you can go beyond your product
when you're talking about the competition.
If you have unique differentiators that really set you apart that's related
to your distribution strategy, pricing, business model, no long term contract.
Put that in here as well. We see a lot of entrepreneurs that make that mistake.
They just talk about the product.
Investors and customers often want to know other things that make you different
that may seem obvious to you but are huge differentiators.
List them as well.
That's it. That's how you make sure you truly understand who the competition is
and that you're communicating it clearly so everyone else understands
how you're different and unique from the competition.
So, what are your key takeaways?
One. Make sure you truly understand who the competition is.
Number two. Magic quadrant gone, dead, in a box, buried forever.
And its friend the venn diagram. Yeah that's in the box too.
Number three. You're going to build it as a table. You've got the columns.
You go first. Top competitors go next to you. Coming down on the rows.
It's the benefits. And they're in priority order.
And remember, leave it uncluttered in the middle.
Just put the checkmarks or the numbers where it applies.
If it doesn't apply, leave the X's blank. Leave them out. Leave it clear.
That's your Dreamit Dose in about five minutes.
I look forward to answering your questions in the comments.
We'll see you next time