The Next Big Thing

Even with IP and copyright protection, startups and small companies are often concerned with a larger competitor hijacking their idea and making it their own. As such, they hesitate to take a proactive stance in terms of penetrating the market with aggressive PR and advertising initiatives. After all, their larger brethren have the capacity to lift an idea and speed it to market at light speed when compared to them.

However, this passive approach could prove costly.

If the idea or product is sound, and a company is supported by quality marketing and PR pros, they can make a tremendous amount of headway toward establishing ownership before the other guys take notice. At that point, if copycats do arise, they’ll be perceived to be “me-tooing,” which validates your product or service.

It’s also important to keep in mind that a good idea is often not reserved to a single person or company. In fact, if someone thinks they have the next “big idea,” you can almost certainly bet that it’s also brewing somewhere else.

It might be wise to adopt the philosophy of the uber-successful Dallas Cowboys of the early 90s—everyone knew what play they were going to run (there weren’t many to choose from), but they executed it better than the rest and so it didn’t matter. They were still successful.

So, don’t be intimidated into thinking that if you enter the fray you’ll be exposing a great idea to be commandeered. Instead, be confident in what you’re doing and execute it better than your competition. That’s how you establish the coveted moniker of “market leader” and truly mean it.