Posts Tagged ‘Competition’

Richard Branson is now accepting “micropitches” via Twitter for new startup ideas. Tweet your business idea to @PerfectBusines and use the hashtag #micropitch. (Unfortunately, that does mean you only have 111 characters left.) It’s all part of The Perfect Pitch 2009 Entrepreneur & Investor Conference

Pitches will be evaluated on clarity, viability, consumer need, growth potential, marketing strategy, team capability, scalability and competitive advantages.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

 
photo credit: shaymus022

If you are in the process of opening a new business or even just in the early stage of thinking about your own start-up, then I’m sure by now you have at least realized all the many aspects that you have to consider, one being your competitors and potential competitors. I have put together some helpful suggestions below on how you can easily size up your competitors for your new start-up.

• Take a look around you and take notice of the recent trends going around, this tells you what is already out there and being sold to the customers you plan to sell to. Also obviously gives you some idea of what your competitors hold in their stores.
• Always remember to take a close look at not just the monthly growth but the annual growth as well. Yes the monthly can be a pretty picture to look at, but there may be a few months in a row down the line that are bringing in almost nothing which paints a totally different picture when looking at the annual growth, recently stated on Crowdspring.com.
• Cross reference your sources in every piece of information you gather on your competitors and the community. Think of it as getting a second and third opinion from doctors on your health, go with the one that is stated  more than once.

Challenge Your Assumptions. It would be easy to stop here. But if you’re looking for a meaningful comparison, you must challenge your assumptions.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Chicago Tribune:

A Seattle outlet of the 16,000-store coffee behemoth is being rebranded without visible Starbucks identifiers, as 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.

Two other stores in Starbucks’ native Seattle will follow suit, each getting its own name to make it sound more like a neighborhood hangout, less like Big Coffee, a Starbucks official told The Seattle Times on Thursday.

“The Goliath is coming at me under a new name,” said Dan Ollis, owner of Victrola Coffee Roasters, a coffee shop on 15th Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, about a block-and-a-half from the made-over Starbucks set to open next week.

We tried to ask Starbucks, but got no response Thursday. If the chain — which has been trying to boost profits by experimenting with instant coffee, super-premium coffee and more — does come at the locals in the cafe equivalent of unmarked cars, the locals will be ready.

“They must be conceding something. They must be feeling they can’t compete on a neighborhood level,” said Tony Dreyfuss, an owner of Metropolis Coffee Company, in the Edgewater neighborhood. “It does feel a little bit sneaky to me. But our quality is better than theirs, I feel, and our customers know us. ”

Photo by Starbucks.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.