If we work with you, will you also work with our competitor?

I work in a pretty narrow niche: with companies building tools and platforms to help organizations build cloud native software. So it’s understandable that companies can be a little nervous that I might work with their competitor. I totally understand this concern, but there’s a couple reasons I think companies should be less worried about it than they think

Your top competitor is the status quo. One of the first steps in positioning is to determine what companies are doing now to solve the problem your product addresses. This is almost always one of the following:

  • Live with the problem. If it’s a security problem, this is better articulated as “cross fingers.” You know that’s what most people are doing to “solve” security.

  • Use a manual process of some kind.

  • Custom YAML. If the engineer who wrote it retires and moves to Costa Rica, they’re all screwed.

  • Use a tool designed for VMs or other legacy architecture, and suffer as a result.

  • Use a general purpose business software like Excel.

In some situations, it might be to use something like OpenShift. That’s a much rarer situation, but still far more common than the scenario founders tend to stay up at night worrying about, which is XYZ seed stage startup.

The goal of positioning is to eliminate all competition. If we complete a positioning workshop and haven’t carved out a unique market category and target market segment, we have failed. Now, let’s say you and another company:

  • Are based on the same open source project

  • Both have an open core business model

  • Are targetting the exact same types of clients

  • Have the exact same features in your enterprise version

  • Are otherwise the same in every way

If that is the case, than I think you should worry about something even more fundamental than the fact that you might work with the same positioning consultant. If even one of those criteria isn’t met, you could easily differentiate yourself and have a successful business. The whole point of working with me is to figure out the value you are uniquely able provide. If someone else is able to do everything you do, for the same types of people… our positioning workshop has failed.

So, really Emily, what happens if my direct competitor wants to work with you two weeks after our positioning workshop? Before we start the workshop, give me a list of 2-3 competitors and if they want to work with me within six months of our positioning workshop, I’ll get your approval before working with them. And if you give me a thumbs down, I’ll send them on their way.

Emily Omier