Forget Being First, Just Be Different | Hacker News Reader

Forget Being First, Just Be Different

bradmaier.com

15 pointsbrandnewlow7 comments

For all our talk about wanting to be first to market, this post makes a pretty good point, too.

I all truthfulness I wrote the post in part to see if anything written in the seth godin and 37signals style, no matter what it is, gets voted to the top

(ftr...brandnewlow did not submit it because he thought it was good, the test would have been flawed if I submitted it myself)

Yes, apparently it does.

This leads me to propose a new mantra: forget being different, just be the same.

(I'd blog about it myself, but unfortunately my own blog is devoted primarily to motorcycle stunts and zebra penises.)

I'm not sure that I would have called off the test with three upvotes.

I think it was on some 37 Signals thread that a reader pointed out that aphorisms always seemed to come in opposing pairs. "Many hands make light work"; "Too many chefs spoil the broth". That sort of thing. Yet each seemed to speak the truth.

Much of what can be found on "start up" blogs are business aphorisms; they have an air of pithy truth, but are often lacking in any real backing or substance. With some moderate effort, equally compelling yet opposing pearls of insight can be constructed. Show people either one and most would be nodding their heads in agreement.

Any topic of interest is complex, and there are many seemingly contradictory observations you can make that are true in some way but are not the whole story. There's a tendency, though, for readers to latch onto the things they most want to be true and ignore the rest, regardless of no actual backing evidence being provided.

How is being different different from being first?

Forget being different, just be better.

Thanks for pointing out the biggest flaw in those 37s/seth godin style blog posts.

You can't bring a business strategy down to one generic phrase/idea like that. Every business is different: markets vary, products have different requirements, etc. Take your example, in competitive markets with commodity-style products, being better is not an option and differentiation is essential.

And this post, what if your entering a new market? Trying to be different is a waste of time when there is little competition.

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