Competition vs. activation
Innovators rarely have a competition problem. The challenge isn’t that your market is buying from an alternative provider–the challenge is that they’re buying from no one.
The work we do and the stories we tell when we seek to create activation are dramatically different from the mindset of competition, and yet the lessons from our culture (sports, mass merchants, politics) are all about competition.
“We’re better than them,” is a competition slogan.
That’s very different from, “things could be better,” or “you’re missing this new thing,” or, “people you admire are already using this.”
If you want to grow, you’ll need to get someone to not only decide that you’re worth their time and money, you’ll need to motivate them to act now instead of later.