Competition can be a good thing.
An often-heard phrase by many a start-up founder when pitching their company is "We have no competition" or "We are the only ones with this on the market." But this can be just as relevant when launching a new product or service at an established company.
When I hear this, on the outside I often nod and smile, but inside I’m having my own flashback of uttering those same words. As the co-founder at Prima Cinema, an pioneer in the creation of the “day-and-date” release window of Hollywood films to the home. In simpler terms, it means releasing movies at home on the same day they come out in theaters. This is something we all take for granted with streaming services like Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix, and Apple TV+.
But back in the early 2010’s, we were the first to release Hollywood movies directly to people's homes, with custom build technology to do it, and we were the only ones with that right. Boldly claimed to ourselves those words of "We have no competition."
That’s where the trouble can start, although we found a warm response from both the target channel of high-end home theater dealers. Winning many new product of the year accolades along the way. To garnering an enviable list of potential customers all waiting to transform their home theater into a real theater.
But being a pioneer requires doing many things that others don't have to do if your market or competitors already existed. This meant that securing a critical mass of participation by the Hollywood Studios. But this is where the real challenge existed, as not only did we have to build the product and sell our vision, but there were no boilerplate agreements to quickly secure the content we needed. Resulting in spending far more time and resources to win each successive studio’s participation. In fact it was on the order of 5x of what we had envisioned and going far past our runway as a startup.
Looking back, we were ahead of the market, but now we can joke that we were ahead by a whole pandemic. All the problems and industry issues we worked so hard to solve vanished when COVID started, with many of the studios themselves delivering on the concept they for so long pushed back on.
My advice to anyone who says "we have no competition" is this: take it as a real opportunity to thoroughly ask yourself fundamental market questions including:
Market need: Do you truly understand what the market needs and is ready?
Market size: Is there a large enough market for your idea?
Market substitutes: What other products or services are meeting the demand in the market right now?
So whether you’re starting your own thing or part of the team launching the next, new thing. Take it from someone who's been there, real competition can be a good think.