When we hear something new about our competition we sometimes feel stressed - what did they launch? Do our clients go to them? What will our business partners do? Rarely do we look at competition as a friend who helps us to be more creative. So today I decided to share with you 4 tips to be more creative THANKS to the competition.

Usually I bring the perspective of a company that there is already for some time on the market. Probably it’s coming from my experience where I was responsible for launching new products. But today I would like to give a start up perspective and I hope “helping hand”. What I have learned from the moment I set up Know.How.Match. and what I would like to know beforehand.

In the last two years probably every company was thinking about entering e-commerce who didn’t do it before. It is also believed that every company can do it. But how many companies do we see that struggle to be successful in e-commerce? And not to treat it as a nice add-on to their current operations. One could say - they don’t have the right technology or they don’t understand how to sell online.

You might think that it is a rhetorical question but it’s not. I would like to share with you some of the insights that would help you to distinguish approaches to these two types of innovations.

During my episodes I use phrases like “sustaining innovation” or “disruptive innovation”. But I haven’t made a clear distinction between them and how it is important when we are thinking about launching a new product.

Here I would like to go deeper and explain why understanding different cost structures in different value networks helps you to be successful. Especially when you are launching a new product or service. The definition of a value network goes beyond the attributes of the physical product. It also entails a certain cost structure.

When a new product doesn’t work as it was supposed to, discussions start - the product is not good as competition, we don’t have the right marketing, no one is interested as planned in the product. The bottom line of such discussions usually is - the product is wrong. Is it?

What can happen if you always listen to your clients? Let's come back to value network concept and look at it as a journey. What can happen along the way? How you can react to others?

For the first episode, I chose a quote from Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School: "Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake". I introduce the idea of a value network and explain why it's so crucial for the successful growth of your business.