Your next competitor might not look anything like you

If I’m working in healthcare, I don’t only want to look at healthcare.

If I’m working in toilet roll, I don’t only want to look at toilet roll.

If I’m working in menopause, please don't give me 48 slides containing every other menopause brand and call that the outside world.

Of course competitors matter. I want to know what they are doing, where they are winning, what they are saying and how the category is moving.

But customers don't live in categories.

They have an experience with Spotify and it changes what personalisation feels like. Amazon changes their expectation of delivery. Airbnb changes what booking something can feel like. Beauty brands change expectations of healthcare packaging. Hospitality changes what care feels like.

Then they arrive in your category carrying all of those expectations with them.

This is why I think businesses can become far too obsessed with obvious competitors.

Everyone watches everyone else, learns from everyone else and eventually starts looking and sounding remarkably similar.

I want to look diagonally.

What is happening somewhere else that could completely change what good looks like here?

What behaviour is emerging in an adjacent category?

What expectation is being created outside your market that customers are eventually going to bring into yours?

Your most important future competitor may not currently appear on the competitor slide at all.

And that's probably why they're worth watching.