Focus on Your Customers Not Your Competition

Focus on Your Customers Not Your Competition

Most founders worry too much about their competition, leading to a negative emotional cycle and distracting them from what truly matters. A more effective approach is to "keep your eyes on your own paper" and focus relentlessly on serving your customers.

A deliberate, minimalist approach to competitive analysis can save time and reduce stress.

What to Pay Attention To:

  1. High-Level Industry News:

    • What: Major funding rounds, significant feature launches, or shifts in positioning that are covered by industry news sites.
    • Action: Understand the news, but analyze it through the lens of what it reveals about the market and your customers, not as a directive to copy your competitor's strategy.

  2. Deals You Are Losing:

    • What: When prospects consistently choose a specific competitor over your product.
    • Action: Talk to those prospects. Dig deep to understand the real reason you lost. Is it a specific missing feature? Pricing? A required certification (like SOC 2)? This is the most valuable competitive data you can get. Use it to inform your roadmap or adjust your market positioning.

What to Ignore:

  1. Low-Level Details:

    • What: Social media posts, minor feature tweaks, blog posts, etc.
    • Why: From the outside, competitors always look polished. You don't have the internal context to know if their moves are smart, desperate, or random. Don't be fooled by their public image.

  2. Most Funding Announcements:

    • What: A competitor raising a small or medium-sized round of funding.
    • Why: Raising money is not the same as having a successful business. Most funded startups burn through their cash in 18 months and fail. The exception is a very large round (e.g., $5M+), which may signal an attempt to dominate the market with low prices.

  3. Being Copied:

    • What: Competitors copying your features, positioning, or marketing.
    • Why: It's an inevitable sign of success. While infuriating, it's a distraction. The best defense is to continue innovating and serving your customers better than anyone else, and to build a moat that is difficult to copy.

Your number one goal is to serve your customers, not to react to your competitors.

Tags: #SaaS #strategy #competition #focus #customer-centricity #mindset