When you’re an early-stage startup, you have two main sources of competition

Excel

First is the existing way people do things. It is arguably your biggest competitor. It consists of many different things that customers do that you need to replace. It’s your job to supplant them. Often this means building something that works much better than an Excel spreadsheet.

And yourself

The second is yourself. Your failures are much more likely to kill you than any other factor. That is not because you’re incompetent, but because there are so many possible things to do that your inability to do all of them simultaneously might cause you to fail.

What about other companies?

Other competitors that you are likely to consider might be the big established players. It’s not useful to consider them as direct competitors and to respond to their moves. If they move into your space, they can steamroll over you. Therefore, it’s not even worth planning for it.

Your peers are another type of competitor that you might want to consider. But they’re also not important.

Firstly, they employ people as equally competent as you. They are rarely much more competent.

Secondly, they’re facing the same challenges and have very similar constraints.

Thirdly, neither of you have the resources to effectively respond to what the other is doing. If your competitor releases an initiative that’s sufficiently differentiating, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to copy it quickly enough. You will have to compromise something else. But in the meantime, they would progress further elsewhere.

Besides, focussing on them would distract you from doing a good job where you’re skilled.