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How Startups Beat the Competition by Joining Them
As entrepreneurs, if we want to be the best at what we do, we need to know what our competition is up to. So how do we keep a closer eye on them?
The answer is actually a lot simpler than you might think.
Look, entrepreneurs are known for being crazy laser-focused on our own company, product, and strategy, especially during the growth stage. This is part of what makes us great at what we do, but it also means we tend to operate in a vacuum way more often than we should.
One of the ways this hyper-focus plays out is that we end up just paying lip service to competitive analysis. We know who our competition is, maybe we keep a few stats on them, but we have a lot of blind spots. This is a problem. Blind spots lead to surprises, surprises lead to losses.
If we’re going to spend time on competitive analysis — and mind you, lack of competitive awareness is one of the top reasons investors reject growth stage startups — we might as well go all in.
Here’s how to do just that.
Don’t Just Learn by Browsing, Absorb by Doing
There’s a big difference between:
- Browsing knowledge in order to regurgitate it back out and:
- Absorbing knowledge in…
