What Competitive Advantages Matter?

The Startup Help Desk

In this episode we dive into competitive advantages. Everyone knows they need them, but what are they? How can you have competitive advantages when you are just starting out? What happens if you lose them? We are here to help! In this episode we answer questions including:

• What competitive advantages can you have when you first start?
• What happens if we lose our competitive advantage?
• How can we turn one advantage into many?

All of these questions were submitted by listeners just like you. You can submit questions for us to answer on our website TheStartupHelpdesk.com or on X/Twitter @thestartuphd - we'd love to hear from you!
Your hosts:

• Sean Byrnes: General Partner, Near Horizon www.nearhorizon.vc
• Ash Rust: Managing Partner, Sterling Road www.sterlingroad.com
• Nic Meliones: CEO, Navi www.heynavi.com

Reminder: this is not legal advice or investment advice.
Q1: What competitive advantages can you have when you first start?
Competitive advantages evolve over time. However, some may appear on day 1. For example, a founder with deep technical expertise can offer a unique product. Furthermore, a founder with an established brand can bring an existing audience to sell to. Having an existing distribution channel – and brand name early customers to provide social proof – helps fortify an early distribution advantage.
While these advantages are helpful, the key is to continuously understand your customers and validate their needs.
Q2: What happens if we lose our competitive advantage?
Advantages are often short-lived, especially as your competition learns from you and copies your advantage.
A competitive advantage offers a head start, but the goal is to transform that head start into ongoing customer engagement and product development that solve your customers' problems and exceeds their expectations. Thus, an enduring advantage comes from constantly "talking to users" and building products they love.
Building a talented and committed team is also key. If you can keep talented folks working at your company longer than the competition, that is an advantage.
Q3: How can we turn one advantage into many?
Your product being the "best" is rarely enough. Founders must stay tuned into their customers' needs while understanding why prospects choose the competition. If people are buying solutions to address their problems, that's already good news! Now you need to understand how to assure that customers consider your startup during the buying decision.
Test new approaches to better communicate the value that your product provides prospective customers. At the same time, complete "postmortems" with lost prospects to understand why they chose your competitor.
The more time you spend talking to customers (prospective buyers, existing buyers, and those that you lost to the competition), the faster you can unlock new advantages.