The Last Mover Advantage

Many of us have heard about first mover advantage.

If someone is the first to enter a market, then this business can capture the market and make a lot of money.

And many of us think that first mover advantage is great.

But it doesn’t make much sense in today’s world, where everything is changing very fast.

The internet connects all of us and the speed of business has gone up.

Competitors are fast to catch up and compete with you, and you will no longer have the first mover advantage.

That’s why, Last Mover Advantage is in fashion.

Facebook was not a first mover in the social network space. We had MySpace and Orkut as social networks long before Facebook.

Facebook was not the first social network, but the last social network.

Once you capture the entire market with a better product and service, and execute your ideas well, you can become the last mover.

Google+ tried to build a social network, but it failed. Because Facebook became the last social network. They thought ahead and created a strong platform where it becomes difficult for them to move away. Also, if the product is good enough, they will never move away.

Google was not the first search engine. But Google Search will be the last search engine. Ask.com & Yahoo! Search engines existed long before Google. Google has become the last search engine.

So new ideas are over-rated.

If you have a brand new idea as an entrepreneur, it is not going to be of much value to anyone. Even investors are not interested in new ideas.

If you can take an idea that is proven to work, proven by your competitors about the need in the market, then you can take the same idea and execute it better. Or find a pocket of the market that is being missed by your competitors and fill that gap.

I am not the first one to release digital marketing courses in India.

But I saw a gap in the market. That digital marketing courses are too costly and the quality of the courses is poor.

So I made high-quality self serve courses and gave it for an affordable cost.

If I can serve my followers well with their needs to digital marketing, I could become the last mover in this space, but that will take some time.

To execute your plan well, you need the following:

• A Long term vision
• A strong understanding of your strengths and capitalizing on it
• A product that can have a market differentiation and serve the needs of customers (that your competitors are missing out on).
• Investment to some extent to help you get off the ground
• Mentorship and advisory network
• A great team who can work with you to execute your vision

Most of the businesses who become extremely successful execute plans well. They didn’t become successful because of their unique idea.

So de-prioritise ideas and prioritise execution.

And don’t be afraid to enter a market which already has competition. If you think you can serve customers better than your competitors, then you can succeed in that market.

Competitors help you prime the market to convert people into buyers. People are smart and they won’t invest their hard earned money on a mediocre product. If they see that your product is better than the competition, they will buy from you… even if it is the competition that convinced them that they need the product.

Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju