Play to win

Positioning is a strategy to find the market where you have advantages over all the other options — advantages that one could describe as unfair. Not because what you’re doing isn’t truly valuable for people in your market — of course you have to provide that value. But there is nearly always some segment of businesses and/or individuals who will find your product and/or your product more valuable than anyone else. When you market to them, you’ll have an unfair advantage.

Open source is 100% about collaboration and solidarity and building community. But let’s not lie to ourselves: Building an open source startup is about playing to win. Better, tighter positioning allows you to do both. You can channel your competitive instincts into winning in a market where you know you are the undeniable best choice, while working collaboratively even with companies/projects that are technically competitive in the larger ecosystem and marketplace, where you perhaps don’t have such a strong claim to being the very best option.

If you’re started this company, you’re playing to win. By defining your market as tightly as possible and making sure the way you talk about your project and your product makes instant sense to those in your market, you’re just making sure you’re choosing the most advantageous playing field. In business, this isn’t cheating — but it works so well it feels like it is.