Business Opportunities Weblog

Don’t Compete: Create!

By on May 8, 2012 in Ideas

A reader sent in this interesting article from the NY Times about competition and innovation yesterday. He said it might be “a bit heady.” You’ve been warned.

My favorite paragraph:

One of his core points is that we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead. In the race to be more competitive, we sometimes confuse what is hard with what is valuable. The intensity of competition becomes a proxy for value.

In fact, Thiel argues, we often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger, too.

competition

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

Another Idea: How to Start a Tarot Reader Business

  • rojar

    HI ,
    I really believe in this , and sometime creating new area is easier than
    giving competition to all ready establish player
    but we always remember that every new area become old area , and we should
    be always creative .

  • http://www.business-opportunities.biz Dane Carlson

    Rojar – Thanks for your comment. You’re right. Every new idea eventually becomes an old one.

  • http://www.dotnetjalps.com Jalpesh Vadgama

    So true!!

  • http://none suresh sharma

    Thnks for opening up a new and comparatively more rewarding perspective
    for investment of lesser resource for higher dividends.
    Shall be glad to engage on related issues
    Suresh Sharma
    Chairman
    SKConsulting Group
    tel 91-22-23626060 Mob o9867235955

  • http://www.broshegroup.com/ Leo Salvador

    Hello Dane, first of all thank you for sharing this one to your readers. This is really interesting since there are lots of great business ideas and it’s great to have our own and make great plans on making it unique and will stand out. nice post.

  • Priscilya

    Great Article! This reminds me of “The Science of Getting Rich”. That book explained how creation of something new, not competition, was one of the keys to acquiring riches.

  • http://www.cemtercume.com tercüme bürosu

    Interesting article. I also remember the book “The Science of Getting Rich”. It’s a really science.

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