"From a branding perspective, letting investors, consumers, or even your own team see your business through the lens of another company is risky. It narrows imagination and compresses potential before the company ever takes off. In Teddy Roosevelt's words, "comparison is the thief of joy." In the entrepreneurial world, comparison is the thief of innovation. The moment you define yourself through someone else's success, you're not building a new world; you're borrowing a corner of an old one."
"The moment you define yourself through someone else's success, you're not building a new world; you're borrowing a corner of an old one. True disruptors don't emulate, they innovate. And not just in the product, but in how they communicate that product to the world. The biggest tech companies by market cap-Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Nvidia-aren't the "X of Y." They just are. They didn't build by reference; they built by invention."
Framing a new company as the "X of Y" offers immediate clarity but constrains strategic thinking and brand imagination. Defining a business through another company's success risks copying a playbook instead of reshaping rules to fit different conditions. Comparison narrows potential, stifles innovation, and undermines the creation of distinct, inevitable value. True disruption requires inventing both product and narrative rather than emulating existing winners. Business models that worked at one scale or context often fail elsewhere, so founders must design approaches tailored to their market, scale, and unique advantages.
Read at Fast Company
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