Why Startup Copycats Fail & Your Secret Weapon

Many startup founders are terrified of someone copying their idea.

At the same, many startup founders are copying someone else’s idea and making it better.

At my first startup, we did a lot of that. We got inspiration from our competitors, improved on their ideas, and made them our own, which helped us become the industry leader.

There aren’t a lot of original ideas out there.

There are a lot of copycats.

There are endless copycats that do CRM, chat, project management, and other products. Anytime a successful product enters the market, there will be a ton of copycats.

How many link shorteners and Linktree knockoffs are there now? A thousand?

They can copy the product, but there is something more important they can’t as easily copy… your go-to-market strategy.

Today, we are going to discuss the importance of creating a robust and unique go-to-market strategy. It is the key thing most competitors can’t copy. It is your secret weapon.

The Product Myth

Here's a hard truth that many founders struggle to accept: your product isn't as unique or special as you think it is.

Shocking, I know. But hear me out.

The minute you ship your product or launch your marketing website, anyone can see what you are doing.

The easier it was to build, the easier it will be to copy.

If it is that easy to copy, you also don’t have a very defensible business.

If your idea is that great, you can guarantee others will be coming to steal your lunch.

How are you going to build a defensible moat?

This is why the most valuable part of most companies isn’t always the product that anyone can copy.

The Real Differentiator: Go-to-Market Strategy

The hidden factor that copycats miss – and the real reason they fail – is the go-to-market strategy.

While everyone's obsessing over feature parity and UI design, successful startups are quietly mastering the art of reaching and converting customers. This is where the real magic happens, and it's something that can't be easily replicated.

It is commonly a black box that most competitors can’t fully understand. Or, even if they do, they lack the expertise, time, energy, or money to replicate it.

How many knockoffs of popular SaaS companies have you seen?

Whether it's CRMs, project management tools, or analytics platforms, countless products can match the industry leaders feature-for-feature.

So why aren't they all unicorns?

They have no idea how to sell the product.

The most unique part of many companies is how they sell their products. It is how they survived while everyone else failed with the same product.

Find Your Unique Go-to-Market Strategy

Every startup has its unique way of doing sales and marketing. There is no single way that universally works. If you haven’t figured yours out, I highly recommend looking into the 19 traction channels.

The common traction channels include search engine marketing, display ads, SEO, trade shows, affiliate programs, speaking engagements, and more.

Here are some simple examples of how to create a defensible go-to-market strategy.

Thought Leadership

Nobody can copy your experience and credibility. If you can leverage your thought leadership to do sales, you will find an audience that respects you.

At Full Scale, we attract many customers through LinkedIn and other content like this newsletter. Thought leadership is a great way to build trust and credibility with potential customers. It is also uniquely yours.

Strategic Partnerships

Partnerships and industry alliances can be very difficult to obtain, creating a high barrier to entry for others. Industry certifications also fall in this bucket.

One of my companies is in the home services industry. Our partnership with one of the major industry alliances creates credibility and generates a large volume of leads for the business.

Product Led Growth

One of the hardest forms of growth to perfect is true product-led growth, where the product’s usage really drives adoption.

How do you build a product so someone signs up, loves it, and immediately tells someone else? (Let me know if you find this holy grail!)

Your Network

Who you know will always be one of your best assets. It is also an asset that nobody else can copy.

The copycats don’t know your friends and family. (They might be lucky for that! 😂)

Community

One of the most powerful things is a community or fanbase. A good example is a company like Notion. The users are big fans, and they build custom templates and share them. Some companies even have user groups and online communities that are critical to the company.

Marketing is Freaking Hard

Honestly, any kind of marketing, if done at a super high level, can be a huge competitive advantage.

It is also really freaking hard.

If it was easy, everyone would do it and be successful.

But they aren’t.

If you can crack it, it is the difference between success and failure.

Having a scalable and repeatable sales and marketing system is also required to become a true venture-backed and venture-scale startup.

There are businesses that are experts at cold calling, cold email, pay-per-click, newsletters, social media, TikTok, influencers, direct mail, and any other kind of marketing.

They figured out how to perfect it at a level that others may never quite understand. All of them can work.

My first company was a machine at cold calling car dealers to sell them software. We had an incredible team and system in place. It was a thing of beauty that took serious expertise and talent to figure out and scale.

Most copycats will never figure out the level of expertise it takes to perfect most forms of marketing.

Here is the reality:

Building a product is easier than building a business.

A business requires a strong and scalable go-to-market strategy.

What is Your Unique Advantage?

One of my previous newsletter articles asked, “Why are you the right person to be the founder of this company?”

You should have some sort of advantage over all the competitors. Most copycats don’t and that is why they fail.

They can build the product, but they lack the industry knowledge, connections, or following to really make it a market contender.

Here are some actionable things to think about:

1. What is your unique advantage? - Identify what makes you unique and use it to keep competitors away.

2. Become the industry expert - Know your customer’s problems better than they do and better than your competitors ever will.

3. Leverage your network - Who you know and your thought leadership will always be your most valuable asset nobody can copy.

4. Build partnerships - Partnerships can be very difficult, but the right ones can block competitors out of a market.

You know you are doing something right when others try to copy you.

It is fairly easy to copy a product or idea. However, copycats can find it extremely difficult to copy your go-to-market strategy. Make sure you have one that gives you a competitive advantage.

How do you make your go-to-market strategy your true differentiator and secret weapon?