Ultimately, it’s not worth paying too much attention to your competitors. Why not? Because worrying about the competition can quickly turn into an obsession. What are they doing right now? What are they planning to do? How should we respond?
Every little thing will be subjected to thorough analysis. And this is a terrible mindset. It leads to insane stress and anxiety. Such a state of mind is not the kind of soil where anything can grow.
This is definitely a pointless endeavor. The competitive landscape is constantly changing. Your competitor tomorrow could be completely different from today’s competitor. You have no control over that. What’s the point of worrying about things that are beyond your control?
Instead, focus on yourself. What is happening here and now is more important than what is happening there and then. When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can’t spend that same time improving yourself.
If you focus too much on your competitors, you will lose your own vision in them. Your chances of finding something fresh evaporate as soon as you feed your brain with other people’s ideas. You become reactive instead of forward-looking. You start selling the same things as your competitors, just dressed up in a different color or packaging.
If you’re planning to create an “iPod killer” or “another” Pokémon, you’re already dead. You’re letting the competition set the parameters. You won’t be able to make Apple any “more apple-like,” because it’s not you but them who define the rules of the game. And you’ll never be able to beat someone who sets the rules in their own game. You need to rewrite the rules, not just create something that’s a little better.
Don’t ask yourself if you’re outdoing Apple (or anyone else who is a leader in your industry). That’s the wrong question. This isn’t a life-or-death battle. Their profits and losses belong to them. Yours belong to you.
If you’re just going to be like everyone else, then why even do what you do? If you’re practically duplicating your competitors, then your existence has no meaning. Even if you lose, it’s better to suffer defeat fighting for what you believe in than to imitate others.