Nicolas Cole, Eddy Yoon, and Christopher Lochhead discuss category creation and avoiding competition. Topics include the importance of creating a unique category, escaping traditional competition, developing a strong point of view, and crafting a unique business category through framing, naming, and consistent messaging. Examples from Eight Sleep's 'sleep fitness' category are highlighted.
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Quick takeaways
Competition is detrimental in businesses, driving a pursuit to escape direct competition due to its destructive nature and zero-sum dynamics.
Monopolies are ideal for companies, offering the chance to capture and retain value by creating unique market categories and avoiding direct competitions.
Deep dives
Competition as a Zero-Sum Game
Competition is viewed as detrimental in businesses, driving a pursuit to escape direct competition due to its destructive nature and zero-sum dynamics. Companies invest significant resources to outperform their competitors, often focusing on marginal improvements instead of offering truly distinct value to customers, resulting in a relentless quest to be 'better' rather than 'different.' Perfect competition, exemplified by industries like airlines, erodes profits due to homogeneous offerings among competitors.
Shift from Competition to Monopoly
Peter Thiel categorizes businesses into either perfectly competitive or monopolistic, highlighting the scarcity of in-between models. Monopolies are ideal in his perspective, offering companies the chance to capture and retain value by creating unique market categories and avoiding direct competitions. The strategic move from perfect competition to a monopoly involves fundamentally transforming the approach to innovation and value creation.
Creating a Category: Example of Eight Sleep
Eight Sleep's evolution from traditional competition to market domination was marked by their creation of the 'sleep fitness' category. By reframing their product and message through the sleep fitness lens, the company shifted away from direct competition with mattress companies towards a distinctive positioning focused on optimal sleep for peak performance. Through a deliberate process of 'frame it, name it, and claim it,' Eight Sleep successfully defined and monopolized a unique market category.
Listen, watch, or explore more of this week’s Outlier Academy episodes:
Nicolas Cole, Co-Founder of Category Pirates and Ship 30 for 30 | Favorite Books and Writing Tools, Enduring Boring Things, and Why Great Writing Changes the Reader