Dan Martell - September 24, 2018


How To Deal With Business Competition As a Startup

Topics
work backwards from the customer dealing with competition mindset
Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Tony Robbins Joe Jebbia
How To Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout Using These Four Tools How To Build a Forecasting Process For Your SaaS Business

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

193.5

Word count

1,992

Sentence count

87


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dan Martell talks about how to deal with competition and how to get clear on what you're focusing on and what you should be focusing on so that you can focus on the task at hand.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hi there, Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur, investor
00:00:02 and creator of SaaS Academy, meaning in this video I want
00:00:05 to share with you how to build the right mindset to deal
00:00:09 with competition.
00:00:10 If it's throwing you off your game, I'm going to walk you
00:00:12 through how to get clear and actually look forward to having
00:00:16 people compete against you in your market.
00:00:18 It might sound crazy but wait for it and at the end I'm going
00:00:21 to share with you a framework called Future Living.
00:00:24 It's from my Idea2Exit seminar so I'd love to share with you
00:00:27 how to get that video training for yourself
00:00:29 because I really think it'll help you
00:00:31 with the way you think about scaling your company.
00:00:47 So one of the most intense competitive spaces
00:00:51 I ever got into was building my company Clarity.fm.
00:00:54 You know when I started this,
00:00:55 I had this nirvana view of the world
00:00:57 and we're gonna take it over
00:00:59 and nobody's ever thought of it just quite like this.
00:01:01 So I started building the prototype and scaling it up
00:01:04 and it was amazing and then all of a sudden
00:01:06 I started having people say,
00:01:07 oh, it sounds just like this company
00:01:09 and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
00:01:11 I look at, yeah, but we're different.
00:01:12 Then people would be like, oh,
00:01:13 it sounds just like this company
00:01:15 and they'd send me an email and I'd look at it and go,
00:01:17 oh yeah, well kind of but a little different.
00:01:20 Literally this happened for six months
00:01:23 and I kept an Evernote file
00:01:25 of all these different companies doing stuff
00:01:27 because I thought it might be interesting
00:01:29 to reference later but I kept focusing
00:01:30 and focusing and focusing.
00:01:31 I'm gonna walk you through how I dealt with this
00:01:33 because the big blow that almost took me out of the game,
00:01:37 really messed with my mind was when
00:01:39 Google announced help outs and all of a sudden now,
00:01:41 my investors emailed me, all my friends were emailing me,
00:01:44 people were tagging me in the comments below
00:01:46 on the TechCrunch article where they announced it.
00:01:48 Google launches help outs to connect service providers
00:01:51 with consumers, blah, blah, blah and I'm just like,
00:01:54 oh my gosh, now I've got like a multi-billion dollar company
00:01:57 competing in this space.
00:01:59 But for me, I kept saying the same thing.
00:02:01 And it's those beliefs that allowed me to deal with the
00:02:05 competition to, I mean, look, Google ended up shutting down
00:02:09 Helpouts because they, you know, had to, they were doing way
00:02:12 too many things and we were focused,
00:02:13 actually met with their team.
00:02:15 So whatever the reason there, but I just kept going and going
00:02:18 and going after two and a half years.
00:02:20 I felt super lucky and blessed to have been acquired by
00:02:23 Startups.co and Clarity to this day continues to be the
00:02:27 dominant force in that space of entrepreneurs getting advice
00:02:30 through, essentially if LinkedIn had a call button,
00:02:32 that's what Clarity.fm is.
00:02:33 So I wanna teach you the five mindsets that I believe that
00:02:36 really helped me not only deal with it at the time but really
00:02:39 get through it so that I can continue to create from a place
00:02:43 of excitement and abundance.
00:02:45 Number one, work backwards.
00:02:47 What I mean by this is focus on the customer.
00:02:50 I don't care what the competitor's doing right now.
00:02:52 I always ask myself,
00:02:54 how do I work backwards for the customer?
00:02:56 I got this incredible advice from a guy named Joe Jebbia,
00:02:59 the co-founder of Airbnb.
00:03:01 And I remember when I first showed him Clarity,
00:03:03 Joe looked at the product and just said,
00:03:06 who's the patient?
00:03:07 If this is the tool, who's got the pain
00:03:11 that needs the solution, the patient?
00:03:13 If I'm a doctor and I'm trying to treat this patient,
00:03:16 what tool am I gonna go find in the market
00:03:20 to actually treat the pain that my patient has and I kept,
00:03:24 OEC's always gotta work backwards from the customer.
00:03:26 What are their problems, their challenges?
00:03:28 He goes, look, competitors are gonna be out there
00:03:30 and they're gonna be doing stuff but the truth is,
00:03:32 is most of them don't know what they're working on anyway.
00:03:35 So always work backwards from the customer is just like
00:03:38 an overriding principle of dealing with competition
00:03:41 and just building your mindset.
00:03:43 Number two, learn, don't distract.
00:03:46 My biggest pet peeve is founders that I coach telling me
00:03:51 about, well, this competitor's doing X so we're gonna do the
00:03:54 same thing and what I continuously remind them is they
00:03:58 assume that their competitor actually knows what they're
00:04:00 doing and 90% of the time I've realized is that most
00:04:04 start-ups, most companies are executing strategies and they
00:04:07 have no clue if it's gonna work.
00:04:09 They're testing, they're iterating so the last thing you
00:04:12 wanna do is just blatantly copy somebody else's strategies
00:04:15 because you think they're more successful than you,
00:04:17 it's never the case, and they're winning with that strategy.
00:04:21 What I will encourage you is to learn.
00:04:23 If you notice that there's a certain way they do pricing,
00:04:25 just use that input from learning about your competitive set
00:04:29 so that you can bring those ideas to the team,
00:04:31 but by no means whatsoever should you be copying things
00:04:35 from somebody else you compete against
00:04:37 just because you think that it's working for them
00:04:39 because you might actually go down the same rabbit hole
00:04:42 and run into the same brick wall
00:04:43 that your competitor's gonna run into
00:04:45 if you just blatantly copy because they're doing it.
00:04:48 Number three, you do you.
00:04:52 The most unique thing, the most interesting thing,
00:04:55 the most valuable thing you can do in your startup,
00:04:59 in your business, is to do you, is to be 100% you.
00:05:03 From a brand point of view, from an energy point of view,
00:05:06 from a product point of view, from your opinions
00:05:09 and details of just what you're creating.
00:05:12 I think so often we look at other businesses being successful
00:05:16 and we think, well, we gotta do that too.
00:05:18 And I'm telling you, as a founder,
00:05:21 the most important thing that you need to maintain
00:05:24 is your level of excitement and passion
00:05:26 towards solving this problem.
00:05:27 And if in that journey, as you're going through it,
00:05:31 you start doing things that compromise your values
00:05:34 or the way you wanna build things,
00:05:36 it actually will stop you from succeeding in the long run
00:05:39 because you're gonna fall out of love with your company.
00:05:41 I've seen so many companies, founders that I work with
00:05:45 pivot into a different market, a different segment,
00:05:48 a different customer just because thought
00:05:50 that's what we need to do to be successful
00:05:52 and in doing so, they lose the passion for that industry.
00:05:56 They don't care about that customer
00:05:57 and what I always remind them is the most unique thing,
00:06:00 the most interesting, potent, fun thing you can do
00:06:03 is just lean in to being who you are
00:06:07 because there's only one, one of you in the world.
00:06:10 This isn't like hokey pokey mumble jumble stuff.
00:06:13 This is like legit.
00:06:14 If you want to build something interesting,
00:06:17 think about what you value and how you want to do it
00:06:19 and just own it and you do you.
00:06:21 Number four, life supports those who support life.
00:06:24 And I remember I first heard this from Tony Robbins
00:06:28 and the whole idea is if we give, if we teach,
00:06:32 if we share, then by doing that,
00:06:36 the world from an intention point of view
00:06:38 will give back more.
00:06:40 And I think bringing an approach of wanting your competitors
00:06:44 to fail and that competitive friction just messes up
00:06:48 with the whole way that the world works.
00:06:52 That the rain falls to the ground to feed the plant
00:06:55 that grows through the sunshine and it's just as beautiful
00:06:57 and look, this is just the way I think about life.
00:07:00 And again, it's a mindset aspect.
00:07:02 It's like by thinking this way, you can just restructure
00:07:06 your belief systems to look, if somebody comes out, great.
00:07:08 They should be successful.
00:07:09 I hope the entrepreneur succeeds.
00:07:10 I don't want to wish pain on anybody but I'm going to work
00:07:13 backwards for my customer and I'm totally going to crush it
00:07:15 and we are going to be successful.
00:07:16 It's not a zero sum game.
00:07:18 Other people can win and you can win as well.
00:07:21 So I just think that that mindset and that approach to life
00:07:23 will really support you.
00:07:25 And number five is you attract what you put out in the world.
00:07:29 If you think about this concept, if you're an angry person,
00:07:32 you're frustrated at your competitor.
00:07:33 I can't believe they, I had a friend of mine recently get
00:07:37 super pissed off because this other company
00:07:39 copied all their stuff.
00:07:40 And look, at the end of the day, I'm not for plagiarism.
00:07:43 I'm not for people attacking your business
00:07:46 or copying things that are intellectual property.
00:07:50 But what I will say is the energy that he brought
00:07:54 to that situation, this anger, this frustration,
00:07:57 this we've gotta take out,
00:07:58 it doesn't bring a level of abundance.
00:08:01 It's dirty, it feels icky.
00:08:03 If you're hiring people, you're gonna attract people
00:08:06 that share those same values.
00:08:07 What I think instead is, look,
00:08:10 competitors are gonna show up
00:08:11 and the only thing I can do,
00:08:13 because I can't control that,
00:08:14 I can only control the way I think about that,
00:08:16 the beliefs I have around it
00:08:17 and the mindset I approach to my team.
00:08:19 When my team asks me like,
00:08:20 hey, what are we gonna do about these guys?
00:08:22 And I can say to them,
00:08:23 we're gonna go back to the customer,
00:08:24 we're gonna focus on the people that love us
00:08:26 and we're gonna build the best product in the world.
00:08:27 Because those are the things that we can control.
00:08:30 Look, I don't want entrepreneurs to fail.
00:08:32 I don't care if they compete against me.
00:08:33 they can go out there and create the best version of
00:08:36 whatever they think is gonna exist.
00:08:37 I'm gonna do me, I'm gonna focus on the goodness and I'm
00:08:40 gonna believe in abundance because that's just a better
00:08:43 way to show up.
00:08:44 So five things you can do to improve your mindset when
00:08:46 dealing with competition.
00:08:47 Number one, work backwards from the customer.
00:08:50 Two, learn, don't distract yourself.
00:08:53 Three, you do you, be unique, it's what you are.
00:08:58 Four, life supports those who support life.
00:09:01 And five, you attract what you put out into the world.
00:09:05 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
00:09:06 I wanna share a training that I put together
00:09:09 for my Idea2Exit members.
00:09:12 It was at a seminar, it's called Future Living.
00:09:14 And it's really how I think about speaking,
00:09:17 managing, showing up in the world
00:09:21 in a way that's almost like you're living
00:09:23 the present moment today.
00:09:26 I think it'll change the way that you approach hiring,
00:09:30 the way you approach sales in your business,
00:09:33 how you think about product roadmap,
00:09:35 and just how you literally show up and communicate
00:09:38 with anybody that interacts with you.
00:09:41 Once you understand this, you'll see this pattern
00:09:44 in many of the people that influence and inspire you
00:09:47 to play a bigger game because it's kind of how
00:09:50 great leaders communicate as it is.
00:09:52 So if you click the link below,
00:09:53 you can get access to that training as a gift from me.
00:09:56 And if you like this video, I wanna encourage you
00:09:58 hit the like button, share it with a friend that you care
00:10:01 about that you think it really could serve and leave a comment
00:10:04 and let me know what mindset or what belief did you used to
00:10:08 have or that you have now about dealing with competition.
00:10:11 I'd love to hear from you.
00:10:12 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger
00:10:14 life and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.