Dec
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Thu
10th
Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them… So what to do then? The answer is less. Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to everyone else. Instead of one-upping, try one-downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing.
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Getting Real by 37 Signals via Florian
PhoneTag is alive today because we always followed this methodology. It does not mean that you do not need to evolve but the cold war business model of adding features to always “one-up” your competitor might win in the press and make you feel good but the consumer, the person who actually matters, will over time get confused, lose connection to your product and leave.
Don’t focus on what the press says or what the competition is doing, focus on the person that is voting with their wallet or eyeballs to use your product. Win with them and you will take everything else in the long run.
