MyPunchblog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO. Follow Matt Douglas on Twitter

There are so many things to do in a given work day. One of the most important things you can need to do is figure out some things to ignore. Here’s a suggestion: ignore the competition.

Yes, you could study the competitors product, analyze their marketing, and deconstruct their strengths and weaknesses. Or you could simply focus on what you can control, build a product that you love to use, and do your best to delight your customers. There is no one in the world who knows the problems and opportunities of your product better than you. You don’t need your competition to help you build a better product. Who cares what the competition is doing if you are building a product that your customers want?

Here are 5 reasons you should ignore the competition:

1. You have limited resources. Put your energy into building a better product and satisfying more customers.
2. You can’t control the competition. Put your energy into things you can control.
3. Your customers don’t care about the competition. All they care about is solving their problem. Are you solving it for them?
4. It’s too easy to be influenced by what the competition is doing. Stay on your course.
5. You won’t innovate if you are influenced by your competitors. Build something new and different — that’s innovation.

So, do we follow this advice at MyPunchbowl? I’ll say this: I used to spend a lot more time in the past looking at the competition. These days it’s only a quick glance once in a while. We have far more opportunities when we simply focus on what we can control and build a product that people love to use.

What do you think? Should we pay more attention to the competition? Why or why not?

This entry was posted on April 13, 2009 at 8:28 pm and is filed under About MyPunchbowl, Startup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.