51–60 of 224 posts
I searched a startup name in a seperate tab, came back and had an inescapable subscribe screen. If your going to attempt to hold the rest of the article hostage pending a subscription to your newsletter, at least let me get interested first. This is both hostile and ineffective- and unsurprisingly is the most amusing part of the website
Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…
Maybe but here on the Internet there seems to be one search engine which rakes in most of the money, one social network where most people have accounts, one electronic toy maker which sits on top of a mountain on cash. Second prize is a set of steak knives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Wikipedia will tell you that UPS started as a parcel delivery service in the early 20th century. Naturally it was ground based and evolved that way. FedEx was founded in the 70s as a technology driven startup with the idea of using planes for delivery. FedEx was UPS for Express Deliveries. X for Y.
Let's try it another way, "there can be more than one sandwich shop"
Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…
How Lyft differentiates from Uber might be more on the nose.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more direct question would be "Why should a potential customer choose you over $established_competitor_x?" If your best answer is "We are adding diversity to the marketplace", then you're probably doomed. If you aren't better in some way (faster, cheaper, better tech, etc...) then people are going to naturally gravitate towards the incumbent who has already shown some staying power and has infrastructure in place t…
Often enough though, people are unfamiliar with both your brands. So they're going to choose the person with better marketing. Sometimes marketing IS the difference, and engineers hate to hear that.
I founded a company that, in the 1990s, was implementing a Visa/Mastercard/(Amex, IBM, HP, Sun, RSA, Netscape) backed "Standard" for credit card payments. IBM had "invented" the spec's predecessor in Zurich Switzerland.
We were in Austin, Texas. Tiny, but scrappy. Our first customer was the largest card payment processor in Zurich Switzerland (blocks away from that IBM R&D lab!) and they were an IBM shop.
Somehow, we beat IBM in our toe-to-toe attempt to sell into that account. (Less marketing, and more sales "grit"). I asked their project leader later - "Why?". He said that at the end of the day, they knew that they were one of 100 IBM banking customers. And that they were our "first". When deploying "new" technology, they wanted a vendor that will kill themselves trying before they let the customer fail. They knew, simply, that we wanted, that we needed, their success more than IBM did...
- Cars
- Bottled water
- Computer monitors
How do they differentiate and sell you cars then? Branding, positioning, marketing. They sell the feeling of owning the car rather than any true technical differentiation, because those really don't matter as much in non-technical markets.
Bottle water is another case. I'll generalize and say that most bottled water is pretty much the same. Or, let's put it another way, no bottled water has magical properties that make it significantly better than the others.
Again, marketing. They are selling you an image. In some cases it's a glass bottle with a different feel or a social mission. The product, however, that thing you drink, most of which you are going to urinate, is basically the same. If you position the product well you can command much higher pricing than the competition.
Computer monitors fall under the same category. Nobody cares any more outside of those using them for very specific applications. There are only a few companies who make LCD panels. Every single computer monitor buys from them. So, if you buy a 24 inch HP vs a Dell monitor they very likely have exactly the same LG or Samsung panel inside. They might even share the rest of the electronics. For most computer users these products are perfectly interchangeable; they just don't care because it makes no difference at all.
Not sure how computer monitor makers differentiate their offerings any more to the masses. Sure, there are folks who are more comfortable with one brand over the other (despite the fact that it might actually be exactly the same product inside) and, of course, there's pricing. This is one example of the fact that significant differentiation might not always be an absolute necessity in order to have a successful billion dollar business.
One area where they do differentiate --although consumers never see it-- would be in the terms and relationship they have with distributors and retailers. This is a big money play. For example, HP could drop two million dollars of inventory into Best Buy warehouses, effectively on consignment, and get paid based on what is sold. Best Buy, will, of course, push those products because they represent pure profit without any capital investment to speak of. This is a distribution chain differentiation that drives sales rather than differentiation to drive consumer behavior.
Books have been written about this topic. I've read a few of them over the years. Still much to learn.
Start with an end user need.
Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…
How Lyft differentiates from Uber might be more on the nose.
Of course to sustain that effect they not to gain a bad reputation.
Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…
Maybe but here on the Internet there seems to be one search engine which rakes in most of the money, one social network where most people have accounts, one electronic toy maker which sits on top of a mountain on cash. Second prize is a set of steak knives.
But I am baffled by the reference to the toy maker? Who is that? Unless you mean Apple?
My opinion service quality for customer matters more than uniqueness..