3 builders who never spoke to each other

Map who you are really competing against

Draw the competitive set as everything that could do the same job, including the manual routine, the freelancer and the thing that merely eats the same hours. Climbing one rung up the ladder of what the customer is actually after changes the list of rivals entirely, and the layer above you can delete the need for your layer.

The method

1. 01

   Draw your competitive set as everything that could do the same job, including things that merely compete for the same hours.

2. 02

   Count anyone serving the level above you as a competitor, because meeting the higher need deletes the need for your layer altogether.

3. 03

   Write out the ladder of what your customer is really after, one level above the job you do for them, then another, because each level has a different set of competitors.

4. 04

   Choose your rung deliberately: higher up gets the customer to their goal faster, lower down gives them flexibility and configurability, and you cannot offer both.

5. 05

   Ask prospects how they currently solve the problem without you, rather than listing the products you assume you are up against.

What it returned

• Kindle Unlimited competes not only with the public library and Audible but with Netflix, podcasts and college courses.

• WP Engine buys its own capacity from AWS, Google and Azure and still takes those customers out of the infrastructure market entirely by selling a WordPress site set up in a minute.

• His worked example climbs from buying servers and storage, to running WordPress, to owning a personal site, to being a content producer with a book deal, to getting paid speaking work.

• Site builders skip WordPress but lose long-form and customisation; WP Engine hides the servers but cannot let you tune them, so people who need that still buy raw infrastructure.

Sources

• The Spotlight Effect - Why We Buy 🧠Katelyn Bourgoin · customercamp.co · Tech ​ Talk to customers to learn who your real competitors are · undated
• What is jobs to be done?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Observation · undated
• Using the Needs Stack for competitive strategyJason Cohen · longform.asmartbear.com · The Needs Stack · 2023-06-04
• Johannes Radig — Traveling the World and Raising Prices – The Bootstrapped FounderJohannes Radig · thebootstrappedfounder.com · 2024-03-27