Guy Kawasaki touche un point fort important pour les entrepreneurs qui cherchent à lever du financement. Une question vient toujours les hanter: quelles sont les barrières à l’entrée pour vos compétiteurs; ou plus simplement, quelle avance / avantage avez-vous sur vos compétiteurs?

C’est souvent une question piège à laquelle il n’y a pas de véritable bonne réponse et quelques très mauvaises! Le but caché de cette question est de voir de quoi vous êtes fait et comment vous réagissez / pensez.

Lisez l’article parce qu’il pourrait vous sauver la vie, mais voyez tout de suite quoi ne pas répondre:

1. “Patents make our business defensible.” Go
   ahead and file them because you may someday achieve huge success and
   therefore have the time and resources to go to court. However, the most
   valuable outcomes of a patent are often impressing your parents and
   filling up space in your MySpace profile. (The exception to this rule
   is biotech, chip design, and medical devices where a patent really
   means something.)As a startup, it’s highly unlikely that
   patents will make your company defensible because you won’t have the
   time or money to do battle with a Microsoft-esque competitor. Sure,
   every few years you hear that Microsoft has to pay a company tens of
   millions of dollars, but “suing Microsoft” isn’t a viable (or
   attractive) business strategy.
2. “We’re the only guys who can do this.”
   This is a signal to investors that you’re clueless and don’t even know
   how to use Google. There are very few teams that have a monopoly on
   knowledge or implementation skills. This is like Terrell Owens claiming
   that he is the only wide receiver that can help a football team win the
   Super Bowl, so skip the grand delusions.
3. “[Big-name potential competitor] won’t compete with us; they’ll simply have to buy us out.”
   Speaking of grand delusions, this is even worse than TO’s. Espousing
   the theory that what makes your company defensible is that potential
   competitors will buy you out will put you in the main display of the
   Bozo Hall of Fame.

Particulièrement #2. C’est celle que j’ai entendu dire le plus souvent, parfois même de la bouche de mes partenaires. J’ai toujours refusé cette affirmation parce qu’elle prouve deux choses: 1- vous êtes un idiot, 2- il n’y a pas de marché si c’est vrai… You’re screwed both ways comme disent les Chinois.

Signal Without Noise–by Guy Kawasaki: How to Change the World: Defensibility

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