Radical Differentiation

For most companies, the problem with radical differentiation is the "radical" part. If nobody's doing it, you'd be crazy to do it yourself, right?

Wrong. In fact, if you're looking to become the leader in a new market space, the rule is the opposite. If ANYBODY's doing it, you'd be crazy to do it yourself. You can't be a leader by following the leader. Instead, you have to find the spaces between the fielders. You have to find a zag [when everyone is zigging].

What stops most companies from zagging is the cloud of uncertainty that follows innovation. In an effort to remove the cloud, marketers often conduct focus groups, which, while helpful in some situations, are notably unhelpful for encouraging innovation. This is because radical differentiation doesn't test well in focus groups. When you ask people what they want, they'll invariably say they want more of the same, only with better features, a lower price, or both. This is not a recipe for radical differentiation. This is a recipe for me-too products with pint-sized profit potential.

A better way to judge a new offering is to map customer feedback against a success pattern. When you draw a chart with two axes, one for "good" and one for "different," you can see how your business concept stacks up against other successful zags. You also begin to see why most companies are fooled by focus groups.

On the chart, the "good" axis