Large companies often focus R&D on high-ticket items, neglecting smaller accessory categories. This creates a market gap for focused startups to innovate and solve specific problems that bigger players overlook, allowing them to build a defensible niche.

While his competitors relied on artisanal tradition, Sax used the science of acoustics to calculate the precise placement of instrument holes. This scientific, data-driven approach resulted in superior tuning and harmony, giving him a key competitive advantage in the 19th-century market.

Sax designed entire "families" of instruments like saxophones and sax horns at different pitches. This allowed him to offer a complete, harmonious solution to replace entire sections of military bands, creating a stronger competitive moat than a single, standalone product ever could.

The government's procurement process often defaults to bidding out projects to established players like Lockheed Martin, even if a startup presents a breakthrough. Success requires navigating this bureaucratic reality, not just superior engineering.

The early 20th-century "saxophone craze" in America wasn't driven by virtuosos, but by marketing the instrument as cheap, fun, and easy for amateurs to play. This focus on accessibility created a massive new market of home musicians, establishing the instrument's cultural foothold.

Adolf Sax created the saxophone for military bands, but it was Black American jazz musicians who defined its cultural identity. They transformed it into a symbol of revolution, sensuality, and artistic expression—a legacy far removed from its inventor's original intent.

Facing a market where the "sports car is dead," Koenigsegg's strategy was market creation, not penetration. His approach was to build a car so extreme and superior—to "outdo everyone else"—that it would force people to take notice and generate its own demand. He built something so amazing that customers would find him.

Marketing a defense company is fundamentally different from marketing a consumer product. Instead of a broad "one-to-all" campaign targeting millions of customers, defense marketing is a "one-to-few," hyper-targeted effort aimed at a small group of influential government decision-makers who could all fit in a single conference room.

A competitor may have a "better" product on paper, but buyers' demand is nuanced. A founder can win a deal against a well-funded rival by discovering the buyer's primary need is industry expertise, not more features. By aligning with this deeper "pull," the competitor's strengths become irrelevant.