Instead of copying what top competitors do well, analyze what they do poorly or neglect. Excelling in those specific areas creates a powerful differentiator. This is how Eleven Madison Park focused on rivals' bad coffee service to become the world's #1 restaurant.

Startups often fail to displace incumbents because they become successful 'point solutions' and get acquired. The harder path to a much larger outcome is to build the entire integrated stack from the start, but initially serve a simpler, down-market customer segment before moving up.

While product differentiation is beneficial, it's not always possible. A brand's most critical job is to be distinctive and instantly recognizable. This mental availability, achieved through consistent creative, logo, and tone, is more crucial for cutting through market noise than having a marginally different feature set.

Startups often fail by making a slightly better version of an incumbent's product. This is a losing strategy because the incumbent can easily adapt. The key is to build something so fundamentally different in structure that competitors have a very hard time copying it, ensuring a durable advantage.

A slightly better UI or a faster experience is not enough to unseat an entrenched competitor. The new product's value must be so overwhelmingly superior that it makes the significant cost and effort of switching an obvious, undeniable decision for the customer from the very first demo.

When facing massive incumbents, avoid the trap of creating a slightly better version of their product. Instead, focus on being fundamentally different. Gamma chose to break the 16x9 slide paradigm that PowerPoint established, creating new primitives for visual communication.

The belief that you must find an untapped, 'blue ocean' market is a fallacy. In a connected world, every opportunity is visible and becomes saturated quickly. Instead of looking for a secret angle, focus on self-awareness and superior execution within an existing market.

Drawing from Verkada's decision to build its own hardware, the strategy is to intentionally tackle difficult, foundational challenges early on. While this requires more upfront investment and delays initial traction, it creates an immense competitive barrier that latecomers will struggle to overcome.