Fast Enough
It pays to be second In the wide and weird world of business plans (and having sat on VC panels during start-up pitch parties, I have seen some mightily weird business plans) being a fast follower is the sanest approach. A fast follower lets another company prove that a market exists, then lets the follower rapidly become a competitor by mimicking the core features in their competitor’s ground breaking product while adding those that they missed. Risk is lower, development costs are lower, and if well timed you join the party at the moment early majority buyers raise their sluggish heads and open their tightly clasped wallets. I maintain that Microsoft made its fortune by being a fast follower. MS-DOS was a practical clone of CP/M which had proven that the personal business computer concept was viable. Microsoft also mimicked Macs when creating Windows and Apple mimicked Xerox’s pioneering of … Continue reading →