On Competition
On Competition
Some forms of competition are net positive for all players. The key is where competitors place their focus...
Looking for your dose of gym owner drama? I’m about to talk about Kilo entering the gym management space… oh boy! This post wasn’t endorsed or approved by anyone at Kilo.
Revisiting our last post - On Zero-Sum Games - we discuss how the best games to play in business often are tri-sided games. This general concept is hard to swallow because we’re trained from onset that we should play games with one ultimate winner.
Similar to that, today I’d like to discuss competition. If you have a baked in mindset that games have one winner, all competition is bad. This is because with one winner in a zero-sum game and new competition means another person to beat.
Enlightened business people understand that the core purpose of a business is to solve customer pain and make their customer’s lives better.
Competition drives innovation and innovation drives customer value. Thus competition is a net win for customers.
Unmatched Tri-Sided Games Result in Zero-Summed Games
Competition for competition’s sake is irrelevant. In fact, if competitors aren’t playing the same game, the market will force an ultimate winner.
Assume two bakeries are operating in next door to each other.
😈 Bakery A’s mission is to steal all of the customers of Bakery B.
😇 Bakery B’s mission is to make pastries that are so good people will drive 10 extra miles to get them.
Over time, Bakery B will dominate the market because their focus is on the customer while Bakery A is focused on Bakery B. The game will naturally become zero-summed.
Balanced Tri-Sided Games Result Rise Tides and Add Value
However, if Bakery A adjusts and focuses on making unique and amazing coffee, they’ve created a proper 3 sided game where everyone wins.
Especially the customers.
What makes it proper is both competitors are focused on the customer outcome over each other.
Now, when the line gets too long at Bakery A, customers can easily choose to patronize Bakery B because the value is there. If the line at Bakery B is too long, they can hop back over to Bakery A.
The customer has choice and the choices are valuable to them. By focusing on customer value, the pair of bakeries are pulling more customers into their orbit. Customers who appreciate the value in choice.
Further, since both Bakeries are focused on making customers delighted, they will continually drive additional value into the products they build. Again, great for the customer.
Companies That Lack Customer Focus Die
(this includes revenue, vanity metrics, competition, anything).
Every established industry is built on the backs of two or more companies trying to bring massive value to their customer base.
Competitive forces drive never-ending value creation.
Many companies fall into the trap of trying to grow business without adding value. Those companies fall outside of the concept of creating multi-sided games where everyone can win.
Those companies should die.
Why Kilo Is Great For PushPress (and vice versa)
On that note, the boutique gym management space has been remarkably void of another player who cares about their customers as much as PushPress does - which has left us to compete with ourselves to build innovation and value.
For all the reasons I’ve outlined above - I’m absolutely stoked Kilo has entered this race because I have long known and talked to many of the people around the Kilo project - and I can tell they care as well.
If you’re stuck on another gym software - watch how much Kilo and PushPress will use our shared customer obsessions to drive an insane amount of value to gym owners.
This is obviously good for PushPress clients and Kilo’s future clients as we will push each other to be better.
However, it actually brings the most value for all of the gyms that are stuck riding it out on software platforms that have stopped innovating.
It’s only a matter of time until they realize there is software systems that are building more value daily - and drive the proverbial extra 10 miles to see which shop suits them best.
There’s room in every industry for more than one winner. However, if you’re operating in our space and you don’t genuinely care about the actual gym owners, you have put yourself in a zero-sum game - and you will lose over time.