{"id":72932,"date":"2017-01-03T11:47:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T19:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/?p=72932"},"modified":"2019-06-21T10:37:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:37:09","slug":"5-ways-deal-business-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Starting a business is daunting, you\u2019re up against a plethora of competitors who could easily squash you or steal your idea. If you\u2019ve said to yourself, \u201cI have no competitors, we\u2019re first in the market\u201d you\u2019re probably not doing enough market research. I\u2019m willing to bet there are at least 15 other companies globally working on the exact same solution \u2014 some of them may still be in \u2018stealth mode\u2019 like you, which makes them harder to find.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is, too often entrepreneurs focus too much on the competitors that they fail to pay enough attention to the market. With that being said, here are five things you need to pay attention to when thinking about competition by our Head of Growth, Chin Hing Chang.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>1. Map Out the Competitive Landscape<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research, research, and then do some more research. Ask questions such as: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What competitors have come before you and why did they fail? How will you be different and avoid their mistakes? <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who are other competitors that might move into your space? How would you react to that and defend yourself?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>2. Differentiation<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Differentiation is not necessary on day one but in an ever increasingly noisy marketplace stuffed with competitors, it is crucial to the survival of your startup. Ask yourself, what sets you apart from your competitors? How can you defend yourself from competitors?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Typically, differentiation falls into one of four categories:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Product:<\/strong> Your product itself has to be significantly different (not just \u201chow\u201d you do it)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Market:<\/strong> Access to channels or communities that your competitor might have difficulty accessing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Sales:<\/strong> When a founder or founders have specific knowledge of the market and are able to more readily sell to the market than their competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Business Model:<\/strong> How you charge the market and gain revenue is different and proven to improve conversion from what your competitors are currently stuck doing.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>3. Imitation is Inevitable<\/h4>\n<blockquote><p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cImitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.\u201d \u2014 Oscar Wilde<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best defense is building a reputable brand or community around your startup. Be known as the industry expert for something. So what if they copy you? You can copy them too. Just make sure you\u2019re different and strive to be better.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>4. Make Friends, Not Enemies<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who knows, down the road, you might acquire them or they might acquire you. You might realize you have common goals and decide to partner to cut costs or service a particular client in different ways. For example, Spring Alumnus,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theleveragelab.com\/\">Leverage Lab<\/a>, believes that innovation comes from getting businesses to work together to create lasting change in our community. When we put our heads together, we can do greater, better things for our businesses and our communities \u2014 not at the expense of profit, growth, and productivity.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 16px;\">5. Win With Your Long Term Plan<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only you know the direction which you will take your startup, how your product will evolve. What you launch in the marketplace will never be the only or final product. When Hootsuite launched, there were 18 other identical Twitter dashboards in the marketplace. A month later, there were 40+ other dashboards doing exactly what they did, they came out top because they had a plan for differentiation and that\u2019s something that can\u2019t be copied.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Launching a new company is daunting, you\u2019re up against a plethora of competitors who could easily squash you or steal your idea. If you\u2019ve said to yourself, \u201cI have no competitors, we\u2019re first in the market\u201d you\u2019re probably not doing enough market research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":74289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Launching a new company is daunting, you\u2019re up against a plethora of competitors who could easily squash you or steal your idea. If you\u2019ve said to yourself, \u201cI have no competitors, we\u2019re first in the market\u201d you\u2019re probably not doing enough market research.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spring Activator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/competition-1-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"686\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Spring Activator\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spring_is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@spring_is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Spring Activator\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Spring Activator\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/27452b647d0a715b7d5ce433d83c1321\"},\"headline\":\"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\"},\"wordCount\":552,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Resources\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\",\"name\":\"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/\",\"name\":\"Spring Activator\",\"description\":\"Changing the World Through Innovation\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Spring Activator\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cropped-spring_logo-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cropped-spring_logo-1.png\",\"width\":2140,\"height\":1762,\"caption\":\"Spring Activator\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/spring_is\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/springactivator\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/spring-is\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCZzAdH-eUqQkKxVD8odgEhg\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/27452b647d0a715b7d5ce433d83c1321\",\"name\":\"Spring Activator\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/24beba1f14eceb2e354109375213ccad?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/24beba1f14eceb2e354109375213ccad?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Spring Activator\"},\"description\":\"As a certified B Corporation\u00ae, Spring is a global incubator and accelerator that empowers entrepreneurs and entrepreneur ecosystem organizations to build better businesses and change the world. Through its global advisory services, it has helped more than 70 different incubators, accelerators, foundations, and governments on 5 continents enhance their capacity to maximize impact both in their local communities and globally. With their impact programs, they have helped more than 700 entrepreneurs create 350 companies and raise more than $22M in funding.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spring_is\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/author\/spring-community\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator","og_description":"Launching a new company is daunting, you\u2019re up against a plethora of competitors who could easily squash you or steal your idea. If you\u2019ve said to yourself, \u201cI have no competitors, we\u2019re first in the market\u201d you\u2019re probably not doing enough market research.","og_url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/","og_site_name":"Spring Activator","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/","article_published_time":"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":"1000","height":"686","url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/competition-1-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Spring Activator","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spring_is","twitter_site":"@spring_is","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Spring Activator","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/"},"author":{"name":"Spring Activator","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/27452b647d0a715b7d5ce433d83c1321"},"headline":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition","datePublished":"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/"},"wordCount":552,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Resources"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/","url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/","name":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition - Spring Activator","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-01-03T19:47:17+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-21T17:37:09+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/resources\/5-ways-deal-business-competition\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"5 Ways To Deal With Business Competition"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/","name":"Spring Activator","description":"Changing the World Through Innovation","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#organization","name":"Spring Activator","url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cropped-spring_logo-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/cropped-spring_logo-1.png","width":2140,"height":1762,"caption":"Spring Activator"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/spring_is","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/springactivator\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/spring-is\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCZzAdH-eUqQkKxVD8odgEhg"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/27452b647d0a715b7d5ce433d83c1321","name":"Spring Activator","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/24beba1f14eceb2e354109375213ccad?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/24beba1f14eceb2e354109375213ccad?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Spring Activator"},"description":"As a certified B Corporation\u00ae, Spring is a global incubator and accelerator that empowers entrepreneurs and entrepreneur ecosystem organizations to build better businesses and change the world. Through its global advisory services, it has helped more than 70 different incubators, accelerators, foundations, and governments on 5 continents enhance their capacity to maximize impact both in their local communities and globally. With their impact programs, they have helped more than 700 entrepreneurs create 350 companies and raise more than $22M in funding.","sameAs":["https:\/\/spring.is\/old","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpringImpact\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spring_is"],"url":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/author\/spring-community\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72932"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79133,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72932\/revisions\/79133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spring.is\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}