Do things that don’t scale.
As a startup you have to not only solve a real problem, but also have a market for your solution. And markets are relentless.
Especially when entering markets in close proximity to other players there is a big chance that they will try to replicate whatever you do, the moment your startup catches success.
Established competitors can copy your “special ingredient” and have already scaled production, distribution and Marketing, easily undercutting your offering.
The solution:
Do things that are hard to replicate.
Do things that don’t scale.
This idea was popularised by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham in one of his essays with that title.
If it takes you time and extreme effort to build you are safer for longer.
But, what can you do?
Mike Cessario offers a solution in the podcast with Harry Stebbings:
Build a brand.
With his Brand Liquid death he conquered the minds of millions of people, by mocking traditional marketing and by being unique and fun.
Mirja Schwartz offered a similar idea at her talk at Brycke popup space today:
Build a community.
Communities are larger than target groups. Communities attract people who might not even be able to afford your products or have access to them. But they want to be part of the lore. They want to share the same goals, the same vision and embark on a journey together.
Building and hosting a successful community is also a thing that doesn’t scale that well. And it takes time. Lots of it.
There was a third aspect I got reminded of, as I talked to the founders of Unser Tag – Die Hochzeitsapp after their ASAP BW pitch at the finale yesterday:
Becoming the “go to source” for information on a specific topic.
Building and communicating expertise around a topic and becoming the domain expert takes a lot of effort and time. And it works. By becoming the trusted source of information you gain domain authority. However this is also hard and doesn’t scale
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