Competition-Aware, Not Competition-Focused
Stay aware of rivals but anchor on the customer job, because the real competitor is the default old way
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
A posture for operating under competitive threat in a large, under-penetrated market. Rather than reacting to a competitor's moves, you stay aware of them but keep your focus on the customers you serve and the job to be done — recognizing that in a vast market the true competition is usually the incumbent default behavior, not the named rival.
Origin
Brian Tolkin at Opendoor, applied to Zillow's entry into (and exit from) instant home-buying; he draws parallels to Uber vs. Lyft and to Stripe Atlas vs. AngelList.
Core principles
- 01Be competition-aware but not competition-focused
- 02In a vast market the size of the prize isn't diminished by a rival — real estate is the largest asset class in the US and most people still move the traditional way
- 03Staying focused on your customer's job gives confidence regardless of the competitive environment
- 04The actual competition is often the default behavior (buying a house the old way; trips that are neither Uber nor Lyft)
How to run it
- 1
Size the real market and the real alternative
Recognize how under-penetrated the market is — the vast majority of people still transact the traditional way — so the named competitor isn't consuming the whole prize.
Pro tip Name the true competitor as the default behavior, not the rival brand.
- 2
Stay aware of competitors without orienting around them
Track what rivals do, but don't let their moves set your roadmap; anchor decisions on the customers you talk to every day.
Watch out Reacting to a competitor's entry can pull you off the focused execution that actually wins.
- 3
Win by doing the customer's job best, then route or partner
Focus on doing the best possible job on the customer's job to be done; if a rival's strength is complementary, partnering can beat competing.
Pro tip Zillow's reach + Opendoor's selling solution became a symbiotic partnership rather than a fight; Stripe Atlas simply out-executed AngelList and won that way.
In the wild
Zillow launched a direct competitor to Opendoor's instant-buying model, struggled, shut it down, and instead partnered — Zillow's high-intent browsing audience feeding Opendoor's transaction/selling solution. The vertically-integrated demands (pricing, product, ops, risk, capital markets) that were in Opendoor's DNA proved hard for a software-driven company.
→ A symbiotic partnership; Zillow became a strong distribution partner rather than a defeated rival.
AngelList launched a direct competitor to Stripe Atlas; Stripe concluded Atlas was simply much better and AngelList ended up routing users to Atlas.
→ Focusing on doing the job best, not on the rival, produced the win.
Common mistakes
Becoming competition-focused and reactive
Orienting your roadmap around a rival's moves pulls attention from the customer's job — the thing that actually differentiates you and wins the still-open market.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and product leaders facing a well-resourced entrant in a large, under-penetrated market
Not ideal for
Saturated, zero-sum markets where share is genuinely being taken directly and competitive response is unavoidable
From the transcript
“being um competition aware but not necessarily competition focused”
“the vast majority of people still move the traditional way”
“real is the largest asset classroom in the United States”
“transportation is almost infinitely large ... there's plenty of trips that happen ... that's neither Uber norlift”
“if you just stay focused on jobs to be done ... the market is much bigger that you're not really competing with someone else”
From the episode
Lessons from scaling Uber and Opendoor
Brian Tolkin (Head of Product at Opendoor, ex-Uber)