UX Strategy

Chapter 4. Conducting Competitive Research

You were right. I was on the wrong track.

We’re deep in the valley, how deep in the gulley.

And now in the canyon. Out in the yonder.

—SONIC YOUTH (1984)

NOW THAT YOU HAVE A STRONG POSITIVE SIGNAL THAT YOU’RE ONTO something, you need to ask, “Why hasn’t this solution been built yet?” I hesitate to say that everything has been done, but pretty much everything has been attempted. It’s because individuals and companies have been designing products for distribution and consumption on the Internet for more than 20 years! Knowing what has actually worked or failed is crucial to identifying a competitive advantage. So, in this chapter and the next, we will look more deeply into Tenet 1, Business Strategy (Figure 4-1).

Figure 4-1. Tenet 1: Business Strategy

Learning Lessons, the Hard Way

Doing solid investigative market research is like peeling an onion. The more layers you peel, the more you reveal. And it also might bring tears to your eyes if you discover that your product vision is not actually unique. But don’t you want to know what it will take to beat the competition sooner rather than later? If you don’t know what you don’t know, you are at risk of learning the hard way.

Take, for instance, my dear father. In 1976, at the age of 38, he got up the courage to quit his full-time job as the area management supervisor for a popular California restaurant ...