You only compete with one thing
“At both Viaweb and YC, every minute I spent thinking about competitors was, in retrospect, a minute wasted... It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors — so rare that you can almost discount the possibility... Inexperienced founders usually give competitors more credit than they deserve. Whether you succeed depends far more
... See moreFocus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own vision. Your chances of coming up with something fresh go way down when you keep feeding your brain other people’s ideas. You become reactionary instead of visionary. You wind up offering your competitor’s products with a different coat of paint. If you’re planning to build “the iPod k
... See moreJason Fried • ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever
You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not just what you can see people doing.”
Lenny Rachitsky • Business Building - A collection on Sublime
Of course, we should also keep in mind "do not compete for the sake of competition". Sometimes, after a prolonged period of competition, the only goal becomes simply beating the competitor. For example, in the Microsoft-Google competition, Microsoft for a long time saw defeating Google as its goal, and invested heavily in search. It wasn't until a
... See moreZhang Yiming • Zhang Yiming’s Last Speech: Part II
Because of how much we deify the great entrepreneurs of our time, we end up inevitably comparing our new company
John Koenig • Edward Lando
Now think about how we do business. We’re always competing against someone else. We’re always trying to be better than someone else. Better quality. More features. Better service. We’re always comparing ourselves to others. And no one wants to help us. What if we showed up to work every day simply to be better than ourselves? What if the goal was t
... See moreSimon Sinek • Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
On an individual level, however, it’s absolutely critical that you know who you’re competing with and why, that you have a clear sense of the space you’re in.
Ryan Holiday • Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent
The only people you should hire are focused ones. The only competitors you should worry about are the focused ones.