Best way to fight competition is to RUN LIKE HELL.

This is for the tech companies out there. You might not need to have fully unique intellectual property as long as you run like hell. I was just at a startup pitch event and heard a presentation from a business that I think is going to be pretty successful. They solve a very specific problem for a very specific target market, and from what I saw, they do a pretty good job with it. From an investor perspective, this business looks a little problematic—it doesn’t have a moat around it to protect it. They don’t have patents on high-tech intellectual property, and it’s not something that would be impossible to replicate if someone else wanted to do it. That’s usually not the kind of thing investors are excited to invest in. But I’m not an investor—I’m a business and marketing consultant. So I look at this from the perspective of: is this business going to make money? And the answer is yes, it is. In the startup investment world, there’s a high priority placed on defensible uniqueness. Investors want something distinctive that nobody else can do to give their investment extra protection and help them feel safe. They like a business that has a shield around it to protect it from competitors. But that’s not my favorite way to defend against competition. I believe the best defense is to run like hell—competitors can’t beat you if they can’t catch you. There is some advantage to being first to market, but I think that’s highly overrated. The more important factor is how fast you are moving. If you’re running like hell, even competitors who enter your space and replicate what you’re doing will always be chasing you. They start late and have to follow the same trajectory you did, so as long as you hit that trajectory and move quickly, it’s going to be really hard for them to catch up. Being first may not matter that much, but having a company that moves quickly and improves faster than the competition on a consistent, reliable basis provides great defensibility. If you’re doing that, your business isn’t significantly jeopardized by someone coming along later and doing the same thing—they won’t gain better market awareness than you have because you’re already out there shaking the trees and making yourself known. I can see why the company that pitched might not be super appealing from an IP perspective, but I have pretty high confidence that those guys are going to make a crap ton of money. Why? Because they’re running like hell with it. If a new competitor does make a big splash and gain traction, it’s probably because they’re running even faster than you are. I believe this company is going to be super successful because they’re running like hell, and that’s how you create a truly defensible business.