Do You Really Need To Be The First One With A New Product Or You Just Need To Have A Better One?

The Google Search Engine which is more plainly known as Google Search is now today almost considered a monopoly because it controls over 93% of all online search traffic.

This near monopoly of Google in the search engine industry is proof of how good their product is. But Google’s search engine was not the first in the market. Before Google Search, there were other search engines like NetScape, Yahoo, Internet Explorer and so on.

The Search Engine Industry is an interesting one. For one, it highlights how a company’s technology/innovation can cause its rise or fall. For example, Internet Explorer first ruled but was quickly overtaken by NetScape.

Internet Explorer bettered itself and beat again NetScape but then faced tough competition from Yahoo. But then Google Search entered the industry and put all the other search engines in their place.

The resounding answer is “YES”. Your product doesn’t need to be totally new but could equally succeed by just being a better product. As was explained by the previous search engine industry example, the better search engine beat out the less better search engines.

But it is really this simple? Just come up with a better product and you would defeat your competitors outright? Let’s look again at the search engine industry to see if this is really true. The best example would be the battle between Internet Explorer, NetScape and Yahoo.

All these three search engines used to contain different categories like news, entertainment and so on. The three battled on showing the most interesting articles/website pages in their featured categories.

The winner then was Yahoo who was able to come up with the most enticing articles. This was when Google Search came along and completely revised the user search engine experience. Google Search simplified the categories but offered better search experience.

And the rest is history. Google has almost a near monopoly on the market and despite the repeated attempts of its competitors still manages to be the king of all search engines. Google didn’t invent the search engine, they just made it better for everyone.

Besides being beaten by a competitor with a far more better but similar product to yours, you should also consider the problems associated with being the first one to come up with a product idea.

1) You need to take considerable steps to make sure your product idea remains a secret: When you first come up with a product idea, you need to be careful that your secret isn’t known. This might cause cold relationships and even money spent on security costs.

2) You need to make sure your product idea works: Developing your product idea into a commercially viable product ready for consumer consumption/use takes a lot of time and money. Many product developers usually run out of funds before they can achieve this.

3) You may need to patent it: Depending on your product idea, you may need to patent it which can be very expensive. For example, patenting a simple mechanical invention in the USA costs between US$ 8,000 to US$ 12,000 on average.

4) You might need to defend your product invention from counterfeiters: This is the bane and headache of people who develop unique products: when their product gets counterfeited. Suing counterfeiters in court can cost millions of dollars in legal fees.

There are obviously a lot of advantages of coming up with a better product rather than introducing the original product idea to the market yourself. But most of the advantage boils down to information:

1) You have proof that the product idea is possible: This especially applies if you are soliciting for funding to start a business. Investors are not likely to invest in a product idea that still has no proof of actually becoming viable.

2) You have proof that there is a market for the idea: Products can be groundbreaking but it is still the consumers who would decide with their wallets if the product would indeed be a successful commercial product.

3) You already know the mistakes of developing the product idea: Developing a product can take a long time and a lot of money. By knowing the developmental solutions to the product idea outright, you save time and money.

4) You already know the problems of selling the product idea: Marketing a new product can have a lot of problems. By knowing how to solve the problems of marketing the new product idea, you save time and money.

Although the abovementioned benefits of improving a product idea is a good reason to wait until the original product idea creator has actually created the product and marketed it, there are several disadvantages to waiting:

1) You can be locked out from the product idea market: This especially applies to new products with plenty of opportunities for financial monetization because the original creators of the product would likely spend a lot of money in protecting their product idea from being stolen.

The product idea might be so well protected that it might be impossible to produce a better product without infringing on the intellectual property rights of the original creator of the product idea.

2) The original product creator might conquer the market first: With most original product idea creators being very much aware of widespread copying, they might flood the market first with their product and leave no room for their competitors.

3) You might forever be known as a copycat brand: This might happen even though you might have produced a better if not superior product from the original product idea. For example, Coca-Cola is so well known in the soda industry that most of its competitors are thought of as copycats only.

But all is not lost. There are plenty of industries where one company copies the product idea of another and vice versa. It even happens with established companies. This is very apparent in the fast food industry which is one of the largest industries around globally.

For example, McDonalds didn’t invent the hamburger, many American restaurants and others overseas are already offering it to their customers. What McDonalds produced instead was a superior way of cooking and serving the hamburgers.

Soon, other wannabe McDonalds copied their hamburger cooking and serving technology. They did not only copy McDonalds but actually improved on McDonalds or made themselves different from McDonalds.

The fast food industry is an interesting one because there are little obstacles if any for one fast food company to copy and improve the cooking technology of another fast food company. There are very little legal repercussions if any for doing so.

Another interesting thing about fast foods is that consumers can’t seem to get enough of them. We can already see how the shift in culture is happening. Many people today almost eat at least one fast food meal a day. The industry is always rife with product idea improvements.

Besides creating better features in an already established product idea, there are other ways you can compete with the original creator of the product assuming you are legally free to create a similar product from the original product creator:

1) Price: This is how the country of China became the world’s number two economy in less than a lifetime. This was how originally Japan became the world’s number two economy before the price of its cheap products became higher as compared to China.

2) Logistics: This can be best exemplified by Ikea. The company didn’t invent the furniture but it was innovative enough to offer its furniture fully disassembled for ease carrying and delivery.

3) Customer Service: This is very apparent in the service industry like internet hosting or mobile phone service subscriptions. Customers can easily transfer from one service provider to another if they are unhappy with the company’s services including customer service.

4) Company Culture: This is especially apparent in the era of climate change and environmentalism. Companies that have good environmentalism initiatives usually have a good reputation not only from their customers but from society as well.

Knowing first from the success and failures of an original product idea developer is a very safe strategy for anyone who is interested in the same product idea. But waiting too long before you introduce your own similar but improved product can also have detrimental effects.

Timing is the key. You must wait before the product idea becomes fully mature before competing with the original product idea developer. This enables you to compete against their first mover advantage.

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