But is this situation that hopeless for both investors and entrepreneurs?  Maybe, some good contingency plan is available for them?

Good News for
Open-Minded Investors

Old proverb says, “Mind is like a parachute: it works only when open.”  Nothing could be truer in the contemporary stormy business world.  Only open-minded entrepreneurs with brilliant vision could prepare themselves ahead of time to the competitive hostilities and survive fierce blows from large corporations.  But there were only few of such beautiful minds, and lucky are their investors.

Nowadays, any entrepreneur can develop a robust “success contingency plan” long ahead of time when unexpected, but inevitable whack happens.  Good news is, the well-defined problem has a well-defined solution.

When a big competitor steals the only idea, the entrepreneur can only develop a new one.  Is it that easy?  Yes, it is.  What is needed?  Open mind – and a good guide.

One idea, even very good and powerful, cannot survive – like young, thin single tree in the open cannot withstand the hurricane.  Only the forest remains practically intact – and only a forest of similar ideas around entrepreneur’s initial one can endure.

We call it “Brand Array”: alternative ways to perform the same purpose and achieve the same objective.  That simple, isn’t it?  But how many alternatives of the great product does the entrepreneur have right now?

The Brand Array Service starts with entrepreneur’s understanding – or solid knowledge, if available – of the process in which the customers use entrepreneur’s unique product.  This process, as any one, can be “sliced” into separate actions.  And any action can be performed in many distinct ways.  Here are the alternatives.

Entrepreneur now can combine these alternatives into new Brands that are similar to the initial Brand in purpose, but different in the ways to perform it.  So, these new Brands are like brothers and sisters to entrepreneur’s first “child.” 

Now, the entrepreneur has a “success contingency plan”: as soon as his/her successful product is copycatted by large competitor (they don’t copycat unsuccessful ones, do they?), entrepreneur can shift to the new Brand and provide customers with good reason to prefer it to the competitor’s one.  As a result, ROI continues growing.

Case Study

Again, “in theory it is good,” but is it that good in reality?

We were working with RadioLock Inc., the company that specialized in development of radio-communication-based home security systems.  Their new development was a radio-key capable of “reading” the owner’s fingerprint and “smart chip” imbedded in the owner’s cell phone, and then communicating to the home, “OK, I’m in proper hands, open the door!”

CEO of this company clearly understood that, as soon as the market accepts his key, many “big players” rush into the game.  Since the radio-key was designed from off-shelf components, there would be nothing easier for competitors than to copycat.

Company’s experts described a product storyline, i.e. the steps a customer would complete while using the product, and provided the customer context in which the product should be used.  The storyline was simple, “customer touches the radio-key and pushes the button that reads the fingerprint; simultaneously, radio-key communicates with “smart chip” and authenticates it, too; then, if authentication is successful, it sends coded signal to the home security system.”  So, there were three major actions: “read the fingerprint,” “authenticate the smart chip” and “send signal to the home.”

With first actions, we considered other biometrics that could be used for authentication: voice, eye iris, size of palm, etc.  The second action, although very simple, had its own alternatives: where, in which belongings, the smart chip could be embedded.  This list was pretty long, from watches and shoes to underwear.  And what about communication?  It could be done with radio waves or with optical (laser) signal.

This multiplicity already provided the company with a lot of flexibility, but it was not yet a real “Brand Array”: each combination was still different. 

So, we moved further: the alternatives were considered from standpoint of common architecture.  This approach does not make sense when entrepreneur capitalizes on one Brand, but does a lot of sense for Brand Array.  Although the “universal architecture” is excessive, and thus more costly, for single Brand, it saves money in the long run.  Common architecture of products makes launch of new Brand easy and involves only a few changes in manufacturing process.  Common architecture of marketing makes shift to a new Brand completely inexpensive and creates strong and consistent company’s image.  Common architecture of supply and distribution chains makes shift to a new Brand (and sometimes to a new market) less painful, too.  Now, the Brands become a real Array.

When design of entrepreneur’s products is simple, this product is easy to “copycat.”  On the other hand, such common architecture creates the “know-how” that is difficult to copy.  Competitors would be better off while eliminating the “excesses,” but then they should spend more money and efforts trying to copycat the next Brands.  Since they don’t know what is really important and what is not, they will remain “in darkness.”

The more different “principles of operations” the entrepreneur can combine into “common-architecture” Brand Array, the better.  With one initial business idea, the entrepreneur can stay strong in the marketplace – and collect more ROI – for years to come.  Such flexibility makes both entrepreneur’s business and your investment invulnerable under the most severe competitive attacks.

Summary

So, is there any reason to bother doing this?  You are so successful that nobody in the world can discourage you; entrepreneur’s customers are so happy with product that they will never buy anything else; cash register plays its beautiful non-stop song, and your ROI grows and grows.  Small cloud on the horizon… small doubt whether or not this luck is forever… why to worry?

It’s like investing in Netscape in 1994: Internet grows fast; Netscape Navigator is the only viable browser, nobody can even imagine Netscape’s cashflow to decline.  And then Microsoft came into the picture; where is now that investment?

Maybe, is there a reason to open your mind, protect your investment and entrepreneur’s business, expand the Intellectual Property, and plan ahead the future?  Maybe, it is better to invest modest time and money in the Brand Array?

How much your peace of mind is worth?