In typical 37signals fashion, the wisdom in these pages is edgy yet

Who cares what they're doing?
In the end, it's not worth paying much attention to the competition anyway.
Why not? Because worrying about the competition quickly turns into an
obsession. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next?
How should we react?
Every little move becomes something to be analyzed. And that's a terrible
mind-set. It leads to overwhelming stress and anxiety. That state of mind is
bad soil for growing anything.
It's a pointless exercise anyway. The competitive landscape changes all
the time. Your competitor tomorrow may be completely different from your
competitor today. It's out of your control. What's the point of worrying
about things you can't control?
Focus on yourself instead. What's going on in here is way more important
than what's going on out there. When you spend time worrying about
someone else, you can't spend that time improving yourself.
Focus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own
vision. Your chances of coming up with something fresh go way down
when you keep feeding your brain other people's ideas. You become
reactionary instead of visionary. You wind up offering your competitor's
products with a different coat of paint.
If you're planning to build "the iPod killer" or "the next Pokemon," you're
already dead. You're allowing the competition to set the parameters. You're
not going to out-Apple Apple. They're defining the rules of the game. And
you can't beat someone who's making the rules. You need to redefine the
rules, not just build something slightly better.
Don't ask yourself whether you're "beating" Apple (or whoever the big
boy is in your industry). That's the wrong question to ask. It's not a win-or-
lose battle. Their profits and costs are theirs. Yours are yours.
If you're just going to be like everyone else, why are you even doing this?
If you merely replicate competitors, there's no point to your existence. Even
if you wind up losing, it's better to go down fighting for what you believe in
instead of just imitating others.

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*
"A Shine on Their Shoes," Business Week, Dec. 5, 2005,
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_49/b3962118.htm
*
"The Polyface Story," 
www.polyfacefarms.com/story.aspx

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