Clutter Inc. executives Ari Mir (CMO) and Brian Thomas (CEO).
Mark Suster, the writer of the blog starts off by congratulating Clutter Inc. for raising $9 million dollars of capital from a large venture capital firm. However, Clutter Inc. the biggest competitor of the startup that Suster has personally invested in, MakeSpace. Mark then begins to justify this, by explaining the importance and benefit of competition, stating that
“[Investors] realize there is some market validation when there are competitors.”
While this is true, I also believe that what investors realize could be positive or negative depending on where your company is positioned against the other(s). If your company’s competitor is so ahead and has established a sturdy position in the market first, investors may decide that the battle is futile and not worth risking.
Suster also mentions that an “unhealthy focus on your competitors leads one to take one’s eye off of the customer and market opportunity”. I agree with his statement; while it is important to keep track and stay up-to-date with a company’s competitor’s developments, tunneled, unhealthy focus on these things can cause a business to lose sight of what is more important; itself. Put beautifully by Suster, do not end up “focusing more on the competition than the customer”.
Sources:
[1] http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/10/22/what-to-do-when-your-competitor-gets-funded/
[2] http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2015/10/22/clutter-raises-9-million-for-its-on-demand-storage-service/?mod=WSJ_TechWSJD_venture