Competitive Advantage Exercise

Last week, after an AI for Operations class, a founder took me aside and asked a really good and vulnerable question:

“I hear you that we should think about AI in the business to enhance or defend our competitive advantage. Real talk: I don’t know what mine is.”

She’s not alone. This is something that a lot of founders can struggle with.

There’s a simple exercise to map your assumptions about your consumer’s perspective, who you’re competing against, and how you’re winning out. Mind you, this absolutely doesn’t validate that this is true in market — but sometimes getting this mapped out can launch you with clarity into what you can / should validate. You have to know what you’re assuming to know what to ask your consumers.

Here’s a quick video explanation of the visual chart for Competitive Set / Competitive Advantage. Let me know if this helps.