3 smart ways to outcompete big products

If you're a small company, you have almost no chance to outcompete big market players by replicating their strong qualities. 

Instead, you can identify weaknesses and fill in the gap with a better solution. Here’s how you can make it. 

Strategy #1 Build a single-solution product

None of the products are perfect. You can choose the least good property and polish the solution. Add all the cool features you have in mind that your unwieldy competitor won't bother creating. 

A few examples. 

mmhmm saw the growing demand for online calls but instead of developing yet another version of Zoom , they created a plugin that helped people have more fun, creative, and productive conversations via Zoom or Google Meet. The company raised $140 million.

Dropbox DocSend created technology for secure file transfer with real-time control. A crucial feature that non of the file senders bothered taking care of. It was lately purchased by Dropbox for $165M.

Strategy #2 Make a simple product for the secondary audience 

Alternatively, you can take an audience that your bigger rivals don't bother or have trouble working with. The product might be too difficult for someone, so creating a simplified version for a cheaper price is the obvious path. 

Remember how Wix saw that many creators don't need a complicated optimized website that requires hiring developers like with WordPress . Instead, they offered a no-coding solution for mini websites with ready-made templates and newsletter management tools.

Strategy #3 Digitalize the idea or product 

Take any idea and bring it to the web if it's not there yet. Many old-school companies are too clumsy to learn technologies, build an in-house team, and adopt new processes that allow the development of online products answering ever-changing clients' feedback. 

Last year I joined a dog-walking startup as an investor and advisor. The product was called VOX, something like an Uber for dogs. It allowed easily find the dogwalker, schedule time with a chatbot and get a person in your apartment within 60 min. A 1,5 months after I joined we increased the user base by 40% with only a tiny budget of $700 for marketing, and started growing 30% MoM since. People loved how easy it was to order and we started taking the market share of all established companies very quickly. The startup is still growing, but I pulled out this year since the startup was a Russian company. Now I have a dream of replicating the service somewhere else. 

Seeing opportunities is a great skill that can potentially result in profitable business.