Your Startup Has Competition, and You Need To Become Their Customer

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In this week’s issue of Teaching Startup, I answered an entrepreneur’s question about how to find customers for his startup’s minimum viable product (MVP).

While the answer mostly focused on what type of customer prospect personas he should be seeking out, I also spent a little time talking about proactively infiltrating and disrupting his competitors.

He noted that he had already done some competitive analysis. He’s got other startups competing with him, some father along that he is, and also a whole bunch of traditional businesses ripe for disruption.

That’s fertile ground for harvesting MVP customers.

Do you know what your competition is up to?

You should. In fact, they should be sending you thoughtfully constructed and high-energy emails every time they roll out an updated feature or a glitzy new marketing campaign.

Because you should be their customer.

I’ve been using this strategy almost as long as I’ve been an entrepreneur, and I learned it from entrepreneurs who are more successful and…