AI Will Destroy Your Startup's Competitive Advantage
Since the pandemic, the world has been changing significantly. Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Blockchain, and finally AI. None of them have had an impact on business dynamics as AI has.
Firstly, AI was handy for boring text-writing processes. Then, it became widely adopted and created previously unthinkable use cases that impact everyone and every business.
Your business is likely to be impacted, and you are more likely to be hurt if you are not dealing with it. Especially if you are a startup, AI will hurt you.
Let's see the reasons why:
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Your technical features are not your competitive advantage.
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Anyone can write sophisticated code with AI.
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Competitors using AI can kill your competitive edge.
Altogether, anyone can copy your competitive edge with AI in hours.
Your Technical Features Are Not Your Competitive Advantage
Well, of course, startup founders know that, right? Unfortunately, there is an attitude toward seeing technological innovation as an unbeatable competitive advantage.
That is only correct for 10% of startups, and that 10 percent usually does not include SaaS startups. Technological innovation can only give you more chances to succeed. It cannot be your strongest moat. Not anymore.
Anyone Can Write Sophisticated Code with AI
Even though it hasn't been a decade since AI became known to everyone, it has become a part of our lives. Every day, more people use AI for homework, blog content (not this), side projects, data processing, and coding.
In this post, we will focus on coding. AI is not a magic tool for coding. You still need to do lots of fixes and improvements to the code written by AI. However, it has made coding way easier.
With AI, anyone who uses computers and phones well is likely to write code as fast as a professional software developer can. The code would not be as effective as that of an experienced developer. But now, anyone can write code. That means anyone can kill your business if you think technological innovation or better UX is your competitive edge.
Competitors Using AI Can Kill Your Competitive Edge
Your competitors know about the market as much as you do. Your competitors know about the current technological approaches used to solve problems. Your competitors know your competitive edge, as well.
Big companies can rely on their ecosystem, branding, funding, and real technological innovation as their competitive edge. In a startup, you do not have them. You do not have the human and monetary capital to build those strong moats. You have to be innovative. You have to be different.
You have to use better ways to solve problems. Well, 0.3 seconds faster landing pages, simpler UX, and more colorful charts do not serve this purpose!
You do not have an ecosystem like Apple and Google do. You barely have an MVP.
You do not have strong branding as Ferrari does. You barely have 100 LinkedIn followers.
You do not have hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and cannot buy your own Nvidia H100s.
That all being said, those are not required for success. Becoming obsessed with your customers' needs is the only way to build a competitive advantage in the long term. Their needs change daily, and you can make an uncopyable competitive edge if you act adaptively.
Your competitors listen to their customers as well. That is not a surprise. This game is where everyone makes moves without waiting for the opponent's. You must stay responsive to changing market needs to avoid being the next Nokia.
To avoid getting ripped out of the market by your competitors using AI to copy your competitive advantage, focus on real competitive advantages.
And it's your customers.
As Compint, we monitor your competitors while you discover new opportunities and provide unmatched value to your customers.
Ready to create real competitive advantage? Sign up now and let Compint fix your competitive edge.
