Your real competitors

Email and Excel are two of the most formidable software competitors ever: people use them to do just about everything. Yet we don’t often think about them as competitors because they don’t compete directly…they compete indirectly by being flexible tools you can use for almost anything. It’s too easy to follow the product categories analysts create in each industry. But those categories rarely cover the entire competitive field. So look for indirect competitors which are often as dangerous as direct ones. The iPhone, for example, was an indirect but deadly competitor to digital cameras and handheld video cameras. You need to know who your direct and indirect competitors are in order to create a truly innovative product.