You May Not Be The First But You Can Always Be The Best : Finding An Edge In The Market

Innovative organizations, people like you always be thinking/doing something new, it could be new product, solution, method, mobile app etc. But if you look at today's world, the idea you are thinking of doing, is already done and available in market or someone is working on the same idea or  someone has protected the Intellectual Property(IP) by filing patents. This is for some people can be a disappointing factor. According to me there is nothing much to worry here and back off. In this article I'll try to explain why we should not get disappointed and how to find a way forward.

There are examples where many start ups who have failed to be success because the idea they are working on is already there. They have failed by this only factor. And there are also examples wherein certain start ups are indeed success in what they were doing even when some had already done the same thing. If you dig deeper why is this then you will realize that the success is not about just having a great idea and working on it, its about the way its executed. Before getting into the execution part, let tell about what if your idea is already IP protected by some body. Here what people should be doing here is that study the patents carefully. The patents may not cover the exact idea as that of your sometimes. In this  case, frame your idea and protect it, you may have to consult IP lawyers for this. Secondly though companies/people have logged patents, but there is no product on that idea in the market due to several reasons. In this  case you can go for licensing it. You'll have to pay for this. If you believe that the licensing the idea and making that to the market is really going click, then only you need to go for since it involves monetary aspects.

Look at the examples. If you take smart phone companies as example, there are many companies that make phones. But yet iPhone is received by the people as the only best smart phone. All phones have the same feature. This tells that its how you make it. There is nothing important than user experience. And user experience is the base for word of mouth advertising.

Apple Inc. recently announced Apple Watch and this entered the crowded market, there were many smart wrist watches out there in the market, like pebble, for health monitoring, the FitBit was huge success. Of course there is some brand dominance to some extent, but its the user experience, ease of use is what it matters. Facebook was not the first one to have social networking site. Apple was not the first to bring the smart watch. But yet Apple watch is being received by the people very well.

So, perseverance is what really matters. Having an idea is just not enough its the continuous execution is what matters. Especially India based start ups face many hurdles due to the fact that different people mindset. Its difficult to convenience them, taking the idea globally may work. Some guidelines are if idea you are working on is already in the market, its not that you stop doing it, but look at the customers using it, what are they saying about the product, list down the cons they are talking about. Remember that we can always make products more easy to use. 

So the bottom line is that 'You may not be the first but you can always be the Best'.