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"Someone once told me at a tech meet-up some months back that competition is the\u00A0best way to judge if an idea is good or bad. \u201CWhen there are other entrepreneurs\u00A0interested in building a similar product to what you have, pat yourself on the back\u00A0and get to work\u201D he said.\r\n\r\nCompetition is everywhere these days, some startups\u00A0fail to keep up and ultimately fold, see\u00A0wesabe. A different case study is\u00A0box.net and dropbox, two online collaboration and file sharing platforms that have\u00A0done just fine. Competition can be really healthy, amongst other things I think it\u00A0actually pushes companies to work that much harder.\r\n\r\nDealing with competition is never easy, it could get very frustrating because\u00A0one minute you think you have your market under control, and the next minute\u00A0a competitor has \u201Cpulled the rabbit out of a hat\u201D and there\u2019s more demand for\u00A0them than for you. Many times during the startup journey, you are bound to have\u00A0nights you look at your numbers and just want to call it quits. Your ability as an\u00A0entrepreneur to deal with nights like these and handle competition will ultimately\u00A0decide if you\u2019ll succeed or not.\r\n\r\nStrategy and branding are two major talking points for startups when you are about\u00A0to go into business. Your strategy principally is how you plan to disrupt the market\u00A0space and forge your way to number 1 while branding is simply how you position\u00A0yourself in front of (potential) customers and competitors. Every startup has a duty\u00A0to get both right if they are to make themselves into a force to be reckoned with.\r\nYour strategy is especially crucial in regards to how you deal with competition.\u00A0Have you set yourself up in a way that interests your niche market? Or have you set\u00A0yourself up as a similar entity to what this niche market is used to and comfortable\u00A0with a.k.a. your already existing competitor.\r\n\r\nIn my experience with startups, I have learned to see \u201Cstrategy\u201D from two stand\u00A0points: short-term strategy and long-term strategy. The way I see it, short-term\u00A0strategy represents how you intend to get your foot in the door if you are a new\u00A0startup. It is the plan you lay out for how you want to gain recognition over the next\u00A03-6 months. Long-term strategy on the other hand is your plan for future success,\u00A0it\u2019s how you plan to go from \u201Cnew kid on the block\u201D to number one in your industry.\u00A0Either way, how you set up yourself for success has a lot to do with how your start-up reacts to competition posed.\r\n\r\nIn late 2009, I was approached by a very enthusiastic \u201Cstartup junkie\u201D like me who\u00A0had just started an ad serving startup for a streamlined audience. As you might\u00A0already know, this space is extremely congested and having any sort of impact is\u00A0especially difficult. The startup was bootstrapped and really needed some sort\u00A0of revenue to keep going and potentially attract investors. I teamed up with him\u00A0and handled the non-technical side of the company while he focused on writing\u00A0thousands of lines of code. Our need for something worthwhile forced us into\u00A0creating a short-term strategy in addition to the long-term plans we already had\u00A0in place. The idea was to find a few specific blogs that were keen on carrying ads\u00A0appealing to the same audience we were reaching out to. We knew they already had\u00A0a company serving them ads or had Google adwords running, but with most of them\u00A0they had some space \u2018under the fold\u2019 that was blank and we took advantage of that.\u00A0We convinced them to let us serve them ads on this small space and test us out to\u00A0see how well we did for a short contract. After numerous emails, we landed a couple\u00A0of clients, most of whom signed us on permanently.\r\n\r\nTake note: In the short-term, you might need to work along with competitors\u00A0to survive. You won\u2019t be the first nor last to do it. Rome wasn\u2019t built in a day, you\u00A0won\u2019t build your company today and tomorrow you are on the Forbes list of top 10\u00A0startups.\r\n\r\nTo successfully deal with competition, here are a few things to add to your checklist.\r\n\r\nKnow your competition \u2013 I have this thing I do whenever I am working on a new\u00A0project, I spend a few days finding our competitors. I make sure to have each of\u00A0them on a spreadsheet, their numbers, strategy and so on. Then I try to update at\u00A0the end of every month. This makes me aware of what our competitors are doing to\u00A0try to outshine us. It\u2019s important to study their brand, what the company does, their\r\ncustomer reach and importantly, how the score their customers. If you are going to\u00A0fight them, you might as well know their strengths and weaknesses.\r\n\r\nLearn from your competitors but never \u2018bad mouth\u2019 \u2013 My favorite thing about\u00A0competition is being able to learn new ways to implement and forge ahead. I see a\u00A0lot of companies spending their money and valuable time creating PR/marketing\u00A0campaigns that attempt to \u2018bad mouth\u2019 their competition. Like most people I know, I\u00A0think this is borne out of insecurity and lack of creative depth. If you are confident in\u00A0your product and you are smart, there\u2019s really no reason to \u2018bad mouth\u2019 any one. It\u2019s\u00A0okay to point out positive differences but not okay to talk about them in a negative\u00A0light.\r\n\r\nFind what the (potential) customers are passionate about and give them more\u00A0of it \u2013 There are many ways to win over customers without it having to do with the\u00A0cost of service. I know a company that outsell their competitors simply because they\u00A0host quarterly meetups at their HQ is San Francisco. Sometimes, your customers\u00A0want to feel involved, they want to interact with this company they patronize and\u00A0kudos to the marketing dept. at that company, they figured out the cravings of their\u00A0market and gave them what they wanted. Interaction. Your job is to find out what\u00A0your market is passionate about, and use it to your advantage.\r\n\r\nPrice/Cost has nothing to do with you beating your competitors \u2013 Fact, if I\u00A0want to revamp my blog, I won\u2019t go out looking for the cheapest bid, I will go out\u00A0looking for the best value at the best price. I won\u2019t look for a designer with less\u00A0than average skills and have him design my blog because that simply paints me\u00A0in a bad light. That blog is my brand, it shows people what I am about and if what\u00A0I am about is a poor quality website, then how do I expect to be perceived? Same\u00A0goes for companies and individual customers. If you give them a reason why your\u00A0product is a certain price, they more often than not will end up buying regardless of\u00A0price. It is simple, value over price. Does your product have better value than that of\u00A0your competitors? (even if your price is higher), do you give me something I want\u00A0beyond the basic, that the other companies aren\u2019t offering me? These are factors\u00A0that often make a sale or not, more often than cost of the product.\r\n\r\nIn a nutshell, there will always be competition. Your ability to swim rather than sink\u00A0under the threat they pose is up to you."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2010/10/24/startups-dealing-with-competition/>