• Even if your startup idea has no direct competitors, you probably have some indirect competition.  That is, some other kind of product or service is competing for the same dollars.  For example, even though no one else sells chicken wings in a particular neighborhood, someone may indirectly compete with hamburger and other fast food.

• On the slim chance that you actually have no indirect competition, be mindful that buyers always have the choice of doing nothing.

• Note that investors prefer startups that leapfrog competitors in an established market, and so claiming “no competition” may suggest to them that that no demand exists for the product or service.

• Startups that take on larger sized competitors and succeed may find themselves an acquisition target of that competitor.  That could be an attractive exit strategy.

Now some clever people might reply that government agencies and monopolies have no competition.  Well, perhaps that is so in some instances, but rather few.  FedEx and UPS have shown the Post Office that they can compete quite well with a government agency.  There are few real monopolies any more, and those such as utility companies find themselves heavily regulated.  The point is that competition is not a bad thing at all.  In fact, it is an essential component of the capitalist system.

Competitors keep one another on their toes; forcing producers and suppliers to focus attention on consumer needs.  Every competitive analysis asks why the target market segment buys from company A or company B.  That answer to that question underlies every business success.  Competitors verify the existence of demand, help scope that demand and illustrate ways to satisfy it.  The question is not whether you have any competitors; it is whether you have learned what they can teach you about winning customers.

Sharply rising demand drives up prices and so induces incumbent firms to increase production and new firms to enter the market.  Some new market entrants will have had no prior role in the industry, and others may have been suppliers who wish to forward integrate and/or distributors who decide to go directly to OEM suppliers in order to control a larger segment of the value chain. During this rapid growth in the industry, most new players must rely on outdated industry intelligence.  Neither existing players nor new entrants can know of all the others and so they plan their own production capacity based on dated, under-informed projections of supply.

No industry can long sustain an increasing number of competing firms.  Inevitably excess capacity creates market over-supply.  Whether growth in supply exceeds the ongoing growth in demand or demand flattens out or diminishes, the result is the same: The market place becomes saturated with goods and prices fall.  Competition intensifies throughout the industry.

Financially stronger players will deploy manufacturing efficiencies and short term price competition to drive the weaker ones out of the market.  Increasing price competition will eventually drive prices down to commodity levels and only the makers of exceptionally desirable products and the lowest cost producers will survive.  Lower margins will force some players into insolvency. Larger players may acquire the protected, novel technologies of a few small competitors, but most small companies will fail;  their expensive capital equipment now worth practically nothing in an over-supplied industry.  By all these mechanisms the industry will contract.  Increasingly cutthroat competition, sustained price wars, and company failures will continue until supply falls sufficiently to meet demand and enable price stability.

What is the lesson of this predictable cycle of fast growth in emerging markets?  Do not jump in without a clear understanding of how to compete effectively.  Large companies will often watch the emerging market for opportunities to acquire small firms with proprietary technologies that make the best and cheapest product.  Small firms and especially start-ups need to think particularly hard about competitive differentiation. It makes no sense to enter even a fast growing market in direct competition with the big established players and a whole host of new small competitors.  Start-ups must take special care not to over-rely on their innovative technologies; a fast growing emerging market may spawn lots of new product ideas.  Not all of them can be winners.  Entrepreneurs may want to focus on developing a unique business model; one that takes advantage of the forces driving the market growth without needing to confront all the mainstream players. Find a niche and own it!