http://theappslab.com/2009/03/19/ignore-your-competition-focus-on-the-stable/ Driving Innovation Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:43:00 -0800 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://theappslab.com/2009/03/19/ignore-your-competition-focus-on-the-stable/comment-page-1/#comment-6367 John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:03:21 +0000 http://theappslab.com/?p=2617#comment-6367 Another thing that is helpful is to explore the underlying needs of a customer who raises a competitor feature. For example, if the customer says, "Company Y has a Super Gizmo 3000!" this is an opportunity to ask the customer for the use case in how he/she would perform the function that a Super Gizmo 3000 does. Ideally, you may already have a feature that does what the Super Gizmo 3000 does, but does it better. If you don't, then at least you have an understanding of the customer's underlying needs, and are therefore better equipped to address them. Another thing that is helpful is to explore the underlying needs of a customer who raises a competitor feature. For example, if the customer says, “Company Y has a Super Gizmo 3000!” this is an opportunity to ask the customer for the use case in how he/she would perform the function that a Super Gizmo 3000 does. Ideally, you may already have a feature that does what the Super Gizmo 3000 does, but does it better. If you don't, then at least you have an understanding of the customer's underlying needs, and are therefore better equipped to address them.

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