By Albizu Garcia
I’ve learned that when you launch a company in a field with an intense level of competition, it can be difficult to stand out. But it can also mean you’ve found a profitable space with a lot of potential.
And when there are players both big and small, it offers validation to your industry. Even though it’s important to keep an eye on the bigger players, they usually take longer to develop and execute new ideas. It’s the startups that actually pose a greater risk, as they are much more agile and can pivot rapidly to keep up with the latest trends and customer demands.
The reality is when you have a good idea in a profitable space, copycats are going to emerge and try to imitate your ideas. Fortunately, there are many ways to stay ahead of your competitors and protect your ideas in the long run. Here are a few strategies to keep in mind:
1. Make customer support a priority
If you’re operating a business in a crowded space, one of the best ways to differentiate your company from the copycats and the bigger players is through top-notch customer support and responsiveness.
“The best way to outcompete your competition is to understand your customers better—which means you have to provide service better than anyone else,” explains Steli Efti, founder and CEO of Close.io. “By focusing on the human element of your business—and by injecting a personal touch into your brand—you’ll appeal to prospects and customers, alike.”
Instilling a focus on excellent customer support from the early days will help ensure that your team maintains this focus as your startup grows. The key to standing out as a startup can come to down to simply behaving like a large-scale company and adopting a similar, large-scale mindset when it comes to customer support.
Offer customer support through the channels that your customers use—it can be live chat, social media, or a mix of options—and your customers will notice. Getting back to any customer inquiries as quickly as possible is also imperative. You don’t always have to have an answer right away, but acknowledging that you’re working on a solution will go a long way when it comes time for customers to judge their interactions with your startup via testimonials or reviews.
2. Always keep innovating
An Accenture study revealed that 93% of executives believe the long-term success of their organization depends on the company’s ability to develop new ideas. The key to the success of any business is its ability to keep its products and services fresh. In other words, you must be innovating all the time. In a vast sea of competition, the companies that do best are ones that constantly identify new opportunities.
To be innovative doesn’t mean that every idea must be disruptive. When your company can make small changes to your product and service on a ongoing basis, you’ll have a better chance of securing your spot in the marketplace.
For example, in my business, rather than completely redesigning our platform once a year, my team thinks about how we can consistently make incremental updates to smaller features or tools that will help our customers work faster and more efficiently every day.
In Make Millions From Your Business, author Tom McKaskill, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, wisely wrote, “Basically, you need to create a culture, process or strategy which continually updates your competitive advantage over time. Don’t wait until you are desperate to reclaim territory; take the initiative and ensure you stay in front. Innovation is the only sure way to do that.”
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3. Build up your brand fast
When you’re up against a great deal of competition, your best customers will also be the biggest defenders of your business. When customers are emotionally connected to your business, they are more likely to stay with you and defend your product or service to others, whether online or in person.
In most cases, your team’s values are just as important as the solution you are offering to your customers. Building up your backstory and showcasing what you stand for can be one of the best ways to show your customers your brand’s values and expertise. It also shows customers that you take pride in your work, which can help build authenticity around your brand.
To stay ahead of your competitors, think about how to build up your personal brand around your company as early on as possible. It can take a long time to establish yourself as a new thought leader in a saturated space, but what’s important is you’re making an effort to offer your own unique perspective. You’d be surprised at just how many other professionals in your industry can relate to your challenges and successes, and will find your advice or stories useful.
When my company started out, we made an effort to participate in trending discussions on forums and social media. Additionally, we sought out guest post opportunities on authoritative blogs and websites that our target audience reads. As a co-founder, building up my personal brand was not only an excellent way to get in front of a wide audience, but also one of the best ways to build up our brand’s credibility, and therefore, keep one step ahead of the smaller copycats out there.
4. Focus on a specific vertical or niche
Many startups try to be the best at everything, and the truth is, it’s almost impossible to do. Successful businesses find a niche and offer the best solution to the problems consumers face in that niche.
The reason why focusing on a niche is so crucial is because it makes it much easier to describe solutions to potential customers. That is, you can quickly and easily describe what it is you do and what you sell.
Choosing your niche doesn’t have to just be about the product or service you’re offering. As Woocommerce points out, your niche can be based on a variety of things, such as:
- The geographic area you operate in or sell to
- The demographics or interests of the customers you’re targeting
- The price point of your products; e.g., expensive vs. affordable
- How you sell your products or services; via subscription or with a membership option
It’s impossible to be everything to everyone. If you want your company to stand out, especially against brands that are much larger than you, think about how you can apply your knowledge and resources to do things better in a specific niche.
Protect your business
As a small company competing in a saturated space, it’s important to understand what the most valuable assets of your company are and figure out the best ways to protect them. If your idea is especially unique, then you may want to also explore investing in a patent to protect your company. While this process can be extremely lengthy and costly, it could offer your organization the best protection you need in the long run. Even if your ideas aren’t patent worthy, there are many other ways to protect suspicious uses of your product, for example, by using source code protection software.
Whichever protection strategy you choose to do, acting proactively rather than reactively is one of the best ways to save time, money, and keep copycats at bay so you can focus on building the best business possible.
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