Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

STEP 11

Chart Your Competitive Position

IN THIS STEP, YOU WILL:

• Show how well your product meets the Persona's top two priorities.
• Show how well the Persona's priorities are met by existing products in comparison to your product.
• Analyze whether the market opportunity you have chosen fits well with both your Core and your Persona's priorities.

The Competitive Position is where you take your Core and translate it into something that produces real value for the customer, something that they will care deeply about.

When you are looking to create a new market, you build from the customer back with a clean slate, rather than picking an existing product and making a better version of it. In their book, Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that if you focus on an underserved customer and make a product for that customer that truly meets the customer's need, there is no need to focus on the competition because your unwavering focus makes the competition irrelevant.