How To Compete With Giants

Competition is not only restricted to other startups.

Brands and big-name giants like Amazon and Google make life tough for startup companies as they must compete with large-scale competitors with bigger budgets and influence. The sheer size and visibility of these major corporations can make it difficult for small businesses to succeed.

But, while it may seem like you're fighting an uphill battle, achieving success is not impossible. In this article, we talk about the 5 ways to compete with big companies for startup success.

Listen

Customers

Larger companies can be surprisingly tone-deaf and may not know (or care about) what their customers want. They often have products they won't improve even if their clients beg them to do so. As a small business, you may want to do the opposite. Be obsessed with pleasing the clients. Be sure to listen to what they're asking from you.

They have their tastes and opinions and will tell you what they want and need. All you have to do is make it happen for them. Clients love businesses that are professional, dedicated, and reliable.

However, there are times when customer demands can be unrealistic. 

Henry Ford said, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse." Many times, they don't know what they want except something better, faster, and cheaper.

Competition

This is when listening to competitors will help you the most. It is through competitive activities that the market can tell you what your customers won't or don't know yet. Competitive analysis can help you gain knowledge about your competitor's tactics and find opportunities in which you can beat them.

Reading customer reviews, for instance, tells you where your competitors are lacking, which you can use to build a better product. 

Competitive analysis is a great way to keep up with industry changes and ensure your product always meets the most recent industry standards. It helps you identify what makes your product stand out from the rest, which informs future marketing.

Check out What's a Competitive Analysis & How Do You Conduct One? to learn more.

Be fast

Big bureaucracy = SLOW

Ravin Gandhi of GMM Nonstick Coatings said, "Sure, big companies have big resources. But you know what else they have? Big bureaucracy. In other words, they are slow. And if there's something clients hate, it's slow service."

Fast-emerging startups require a certain level of speed to be successful. Without this requirement, ultimate failure is inevitable. Businesses are constantly coming and going. There are more than half a million start each month, but around 90% fail.

Regardless of how well-funded you are, success eventually requires a lot of dedication and hard work. In the startup world, only those that are persistent and quick will take the cake.

Culture of lightning-fast speed

Build your company with a culture of lightning-fast speed. Ensure deliverables are sent out within days instead of months and emails are responded to within minutes. You also have to create a team of exceptional employees empowered to make intelligent decisions on the spot.

Big companies are not known for being particularly speedy, so use this to your advantage as you develop your company's system and processes.

Check out Ten Ways To Speed Up Business Processes to learn more.

Do not be intimidated

What motivates you?

Many people thrive off the feeling of being threatened by competitors. The fear can be both debilitating and motivating, reminding you that your strategic foothold can be lost at any moment.

In entrepreneurship, this is also the case. The scope and influence of startups seem tiny compared to big corporations, which can be intimidating.

Adam Witty, the founder and CEO of Forbes Books, said, "Certainly, major corporations have plenty of advantages over startups, from the assets they have available to the years of brand recognition they have worked to achieve." It's the harsh reality.

But that doesn't mean it's over for you. 

There's no need to throw in the towel just because your competition may be wealthier and more influential.

As an entrepreneur, you're under a lot of pressure - not just because of the people orbiting you who rely on you to succeed, but mostly because proving it to yourself means the world. Your family and friends are rooting for your idea and waiting for news about it. This pressure fuels the feeling of being intimidated by competitors, especially large companies.

So what you have to do is to shift your focus to your goals.

In entrepreneurship, a lot of detail needs to be considered and processes put into place. An easy way to start is by determining the company's overall mission statement. From there, you can establish smaller, more easily achievable goals that will contribute to your eventual mission.

Breaking down the company's mission into smaller, achievable goals will help you understand where your efforts should be focused on. 

Stop psyching yourself out

Folks like psyching themselves out

Founders are easy to assume that their competitors are going to win. It's so easy to think that when you are having a bad time and everyone else is having a great time. You constantly feel like you are failing because you handle the business and have a 360 view of problems and potential ones every day.

It is always good to keep an eye on what companies in the same industry are doing, but it's important not to obsess over them. This could ultimately have you focusing too hard on trying to beat them instead of serving your customers and maintaining your own company.

A leader's job is to identify when the company or individual has become unclear about how or where to go next and help them remember what is important. This often entails letting go of some of the general insecurities you've picked up as a leader.

Poker not football

As Damon Brown, founder of Cuddlr, questions, "Do you really want to set your five-year plan based on what a competitor is doing?" You never know what might happen to your competition. If one of them were to go out of business or pivot, you might have to re-strategize and quickly reallocate resources.

Competition-based pacing might work at the start (in a finite and limited situation), but it doesn't work in the long run. Running a startup is less like football and more like poker. In football, there is one clear opponent. But in poker, there are many. It's a mistake to focus on one opponent. Because what if you focus on one opponent, but another one unexpectedly wipes you out?

Playing the game is like a never-ending struggle. Don't forget that if you do beat your archenemy, there will be other enemies that you might need to fight down the line.

Have objectively better products

It goes without saying that you need a great product to build a successful startup. While marketers and PR experts often believe they will be able to sell any product through marketing, in reality, a good quality product speaks for itself. No matter how compelling the storytelling is, if a product doesn't deliver strong results, it's all been for nothing.

"Building great products is a difficult skill, " Avid Larizadeh, COO of Boticca, said.

Many people think that because they have used and have an opinion about products, they could also build one. Product innovators, however, are in short supply. It's also unfortunate that there is no formalized training to become one.

Product people aren't born with their skills - they learn through trial and error and keep learning as time progresses. The most successful ones have years of experience that let them know what works and doesn't. Their passion led them to better understand a great user experience and use the latest tools and technologies to cater to user demands.

To be just like them, learn how to spot a market gap.

Spot a market gap

If you're aware of the latest trends, think about what's currently missing from the market. Are there products that customers are willing to buy but no one has made yet? What are the problems of customers you can address? Boiling a market gap down to its very essence, you get an answer to a dilemma that's not currently being solved. It is an opportunity to create a better product.

It's tough, but you get such an advantage by delivering more value to your end users than everyone else. It's the club you can bludgeon everyone else with.

So if there's one thing you can take away from this, it is this: just build a better product. When done so, all the other advantages become moot points.