Criticizing competitors harms future acquisition or partnership opportunities.
Founders don’t speak badly of competitors/incumbents.
They have done something right to get to where they are.
State to investors
1. Where they have done well?
2. That you have analysed their successes as well as their failures.
3. State a plan for how you build upon their successes and learn from failures.
The best founders are students of history.
Many users praised advice on studying competitors' successes as intellectually honest and historically wise for founders, while some countered that gains often stem from misconduct and warned of personal backlash from criticism.
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Plus, there's at least a small chance that you might sell your company to one of those competitors and have to work for them.
Or you might partner with them, or you might even want to buy them for a strategic reason at some point. So, talking smack often comes back and whacks you in the face.
Founders don’t speak badly of competitors/incumbents.
They have done something right to get to where they are.
State to investors
1. Where they have done well?
2. That you have analysed their successes as well as their failures.
3. State a plan for how you build upon their successes and learn from failures.
The best founders are students of history.
@HarryStebbings How are you honestly
@HarryStebbings Where do you stand on success through deceit?
@TheMadQueenEth @HarryStebbings Bricks and Minifigs? Binance? Pranksy? Eelawn? Mericn Industrialists? All success through cheat and take.
@HarryStebbings History is a wise teacher. Be the best student .
@HarryStebbings never doubt your competition
even if its smaller than you
@HarryStebbings The word competition should really be retired. Most traditional industries don’t compete, they operate in an ecosystem. There’s plenty of room for all, and Tesla proved that in the 2010s.
Love this. Being a student of history also means knowing why giants fall: rarely incompetence, almost always incentives. Kodak invented the digital camera and buried it. Respecting an incumbent's success and identifying the exact incentive that traps them aren't in conflict, that's the whole analysis. Admire the build. Find the blind spot only their P&L creates.
@HarryStebbings It is such a good point. We are always very careful to focus on ourselves and let our product and performance do the talking.
@HarryStebbings Being intellectually honest is always more productive then getting emotional and shit talking for long term value creation
@HarryStebbings Best founders don’t need incumbents to be stupid.
They study what incumbents got right, then find the missing layer the old architecture can’t add.
A lot of great products are not “new hamburgers.” They are cheeseburgers.
@HarryStebbings You only mock what you havent figured out how to beat cleanly. The founders who trash competitors usually havent studied them. Praise the incumbent, then show exactly where theyre stuck
@HarryStebbings Shit talk always come back - karma!
@thebeatminer @HarryStebbings I was thinking, misrepresentation, or 'fake it til you make it'. I often see founders pretending to be something they're not but others fail to see the truth...
@HarryStebbings Founders often worry that praising competitors signals weakness. Do you see this tension in pitches? We encounter it often.
@HarryStebbings You learn from everyone