Quotes About Competition

Quitting is difficult. Quitting requires you to acknowledge that you're never going to be #1 in the world. At least not at this. So it's easier just to put it off, not admit it, settle for mediocre.

The web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest." The

Faced with an infinite number of choices, many people pick the market leader.

The obvious winners are the mid-sized and smaller companies looking to increase market share. These are the companies that have nothing to lose, but more important, they realize that they have a lot to gain by changing the rules of the game.

Differentiation is a zero-sum, advertising-based game.

Are you overinvesting (really significantly overinvesting) time and money so that you have a much greater chance of dominating a market? And if you don't have enough time and money, do you have the guts to pick a different, smaller market to conquer?

There are two ways to grow: by stealing from the competition or by growing the market. The first path is slow and painful and difficult. The second path is where the magic of fast growth kicks in.

It's called Zipf's law, and it applies to résumés and college application rates and best-selling records and everything in between. Winners win big because the marketplace loves a winner.

Low price is the last refuge of a marketer who has run out of generous ideas.

If you want to be a superstar, then you need to find a field with a steep Dip—a barrier between those who try and those who succeed.

When you're the best in the world, you share the benefits (the income, the attention, the privileges, the respect) with just a handful of people or organizations or brands.

Where does the scarcity come from? It comes from the hurdles that the markets and our society set up. It comes from the fact that most competitors quit long before they've created something that makes it to the top. That's the way it's supposed to be. The system depends on it.

Great jobs, world-class jobs, jobs people kill for—those jobs don't get filled by people e-mailing in résumés. Google

What's a bootstrapper to do? You have to go where the other guys can't. Take advantage of what you have so that you can beat the competition with what they don't.

Given the choice between building a thriving, profitable business with a niche and a really boring product and putting your life savings into an intensely competitive business where you're likely to fail but the product is cool, the experienced bootstrapper will pick the former every time. If you find an industry filled with wannabe entrepreneurs with a dollar and a dream, run away and look for something else!

The second reason there are such tremendous benefits to being number one is a little more subtle. Being at the top matters because there's room at the top for only a few.

Plenty of people are good at what you do. Very good at it. Perhaps as good at it as you are.

It's easier for investors and bosses to spend time and money going after a proven market, even though proven markets are the hardest to break into.)

Excessively criticize the work of your peers, thus unrealistically raising the bar for your work.

The New York Times was offered a deal with Amazon during the 1990s. It would have transformed the economics of the paper and delivered billions of dollars in revenue over time. According to former CFO Diane Baker, senior management turned it down. They were worried that they would upset Barnes & Noble, which at the time was a big advertiser. Management had nostalgia for a future with steady increases in their current business, and felt threatened by a radical shift in that future.

If I fail more times than you, I win.

If all online products at all online stores are the same, then of course I'll use a price-shopping Web site to find the cheapest product

If you tell your competition your tactics, they'll steal them and it will cost you. But if you tell them your strategy, it won't matter. Because they don't have the guts or the persistence to turn your strategy into their strategy.

If you want to be a superstar, then you need to find a field with a steep Dip—a barrier between those who try and those who succeed. And you've got to get through that Dip to the other side. This isn't for everyone. If it were, there'd be no superstars.