What are good strategies to compete against established players?
I'm looking for some stories on how all CRM companies (PipeDrive, SugarCRM...) were able to compete against salesforce for example, or how all the productivity tools (Basecamp, trello, asana, notion, monday, ...) got market share, or how any other saas latecomer was able to get traction against strong established players.
What are the patterns that emerge in these stories? Do you have firsthand experience in growing a product that was a latecomer?
Iād suggest appealing to a isolated segment of the market and then laddering up, is a possible pathway.
This could be price based, (sales force is expensive, others cheaper) or features/benefits based (Small business needs are different from enterprise) or niche oriented, (time tracking for design free lancers vs time tracking for agencies - I just made this up now).
Also consider unbundling (just charts from json without all the complexity of full blown excel - again, just made this up now)
This is probably only a very small part of it. I have no personal experience in success here; its only based on speculation and observation and paying attention for a long time, so take it with a pinch of salt.
"I have already written a treatise and it reads like this: Keep your eye clear and hit 'em where they ain't; that's all." - Wee Willie Keeler to Sportswriter Abe Yager in the Brooklyn Eagle
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quokeel.shtml
Essentially a Blue Ocean strategy.
Fascinating question. Thrilled to hear what ppl have to say! šš»
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
What a great play and inspiring entrepreneur, thanks for this!
This comment was deleted 4 years ago