Know Your Competition: Status Quo

Who is your biggest competitor?

It's not who you think it is. 🫢

No, it's not the guy or gal across the virtual street selling a slightly different product in the same category as yours.

Your biggest competitor is when your buyer chooses NOT to change what they're currently doing.

In other words, they choose to maintain the status quo, even if it isn't perfect.

In its early days, Slack's biggest competitor was not a competing chat product.

It was good 'ole inter-office email.

For Airbnb, it was hotels.

For Netflix, it was cable television.

Maintaining the status quo is your obstacle to winning the minds of your buyers.

Questions to ponder:

•What is the status quo that I'm up against?

•Am I effectively motivating buyers to choose my solution over the status quo?

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn't a direct competitor actually the biggest threat to winning a buyer?

Because the more common obstacle is the buyer simply choosing not to change at all, maintaining the status quo, even an imperfect one, often beats losing to a competing product entirely.

What was Slack's biggest competitor in its early days, according to this framing?

Inter-office email, not a competing chat product. The real challenge was convincing buyers to change an existing habit, not beating out another similar tool.

What was Airbnb's biggest competitor when it was first getting started?

Hotels, representing the existing, familiar way of doing things that buyers had to be convinced to move away from, rather than a competing home-sharing platform.

What was Netflix's biggest competitor in its early growth?

Cable television, the entrenched status quo that Netflix had to overcome by convincing viewers a different way of watching content was worth adopting.

What's the actual question worth asking based on this framing?

What specific status quo a business is up against, and whether current efforts are effectively motivating buyers to choose change over sticking with what they're already doing, rather than focusing energy on beating a direct competitor instead.