A profitable and sustainable venture needs to identify, define, convey, and execute its competitive edge. Most entrepreneurs start their journey with an initial thought of excelling in different spheres.
Choosing to create opportunities by making a mark in various ways is a great idea, however, you may not do exceptionally well in everything. You can be great at some of the aspects of your business and miss out on the others. Therefore, if you excel in a particular domain, your startup can still be successful and facilitate other sectors.
This article lists the differentiating factors that can help you brew creative business ideas to build your empire.
Focus
In this era of cutthroat competition, the point of differentiation in a product cannot always fetch you the brownie points. It often happens that entrepreneurs differentiate their offerings by clubbing numerous features together to beat the competition.
These strategies to outperform your competition via features may not create value for your startup. However, you can create a unique startup by tailoring the existing features to a valueless group within the same market.
For example, if you are in the food and beverage business, you are likely to consider automation tools for your restaurant marketing. You can choose to niche down to the particular segment. If you are selling burgers, you can narrow them down to those tools or applications custom-built for burger joints.
When you choose to niche down, it can be a wonderful way to capture a subset of the market, even when you aspire to expand geographies.
Positioning
One of the most crucial aspects of Philip Kotler’s 4Ps of marketing is positioning. You can create value for different segments in the same market by positioning your product differently for each subset. Although you may offer similar features in your product or service, they can differ in other aspects like pricing or packaging.
Once you have a defined brand ethos and target audience, you can easily define your market positions. It is ideal to decide first what does your brand stand for and who does it cater to. Your job can be hard to position yourself in the market if you do not understand it well.
A simple way to differentiate your startup from the competition without the unjustified addition of features can happen through positioning. It helps you to put forth your core values and promises in front of the market.
For example, you can have two service offerings that have similar features but have a different positioning. It can capture the customer data and put forth the analysis through two different marketing tools. The first tool can position itself as an aid to better comprehend customer psychology, and the other can be to decode business growth.
In the above example, the first one can capture the customer details essential for decoding consumer behavior while the second one the sales figures. They can have complementing suggestions which can be in sync with their output. This way both products can appeal to the same entrepreneur.
Peer and Mastermind Groups
It often happens that the established people in the various fields are not alone on the path to glory. They often seek help from their peers and aid each other with support and advice from time to time. Such clear and mastermind groups are vital to the success of a startup.
If you are thinking about how to start a mastermind group of your own, you can begin it as a mentoring program but with a few differentiations. One important aspect is this setup requires a minimum of five or six members vis-à-vis a one-to-one meet. The communication channels allow a two-way dialogue where both of you receive and give advice. While in traditional mentoring, you receive directions and are always at the receiver’s end.
A mastermind or peer group can also have educational presentations, brainstorming sessions, and forums to discuss personal concerns. Therefore, you can think of a mastermind group as a meeting of minds that are alike. It can be a place where you can put forth your views and ideas without any expectation in return.
While you are at the receiving end of such a group, you can seek plenty of advice from those who have experience and safeguard your startup in the initial days.
So, these three connected pointers can help you create a differentiated value system for your startup. You can also choose to personalize your offerings with technology and create a mark in the market. If you can abide by the set directive that you finalize on day one, you can be sure to excel in the future.
