Be a contrarian. Sometimes, the best advice is to not be like everyone else, or do what everyone else is doing. A great line I heard once is that during a gold rush, you should be the one selling shovels, rather than digging dirt with the rest of them.
Take a look at the world’s biggest tech company – Apple. Other companies like to cram as many features as they can into their products. Apple prefers to keep their products simple. Other companies compete on price point. Apple focuses on quality, maintaining a higher price point. The list goes on. Apple prefers to march to the beat of their own drum, and last I checked, it hasn’t hurt them one bit.
When I built my STL Contacts app, I took a different approach to apps than other companies. Instead of building an app that did one simple thing really well, I attempted to combine features from several apps into one. Is this the best approach? Time will tell. But it’s one way to stand out.
You’re right. I’m not like those other guys. And here’s why that’s a good thing.
Is there anything in your industry that you can do differently from everyone else? A different solution to a problem that people have?