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Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd

Youngme Moon · 3 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
Why trying to be the best … competing like crazy … makes you mediocre Every few years a book—through a combination of the author’s unique voice, storytelling ability, wit, and insight—simply breaks the mold. Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods is one example. Richard Feynman’s “ Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” is another. Now comes Youngme Moon’s Different, a book for “people who don’t read business books.” Actually, it’s more like a personal conversation with a friend who has thought deeply about how the world works … and who gets you to see that world in a completely new light. If there is one strain of conventional wisdom pervading every company in every industry, it’s the absolute importance of “competing like crazy.” Youngme Moon’s message is simply “Get off this treadmill that’s taking you nowhere. Going tit for tat and adding features, augmentations, and gimmicks to beat the competition has the perverse result of making you like everyone else.” Different provides a highly original perspective on what it means to offer something that is meaningfully different—different in a manner that is both fundamental and comprehensive. Youngme Moon identifies the outliers, the mavericks, the iconoclasts—the players who have thoughtfully rejected orthodoxy in favor of an approach that is more adventurous. Some are even “hostile,” almost daring you to buy what they are selling. The MINI Cooper was launched with fearless abandon: “Worried that this car is too small? Look here. It’s even smaller than you think.” These are players that strike a genuine chord with even the most jaded consumers. In fact, almost every success story of the past two decades has been an exception to the rule. Simply go to your computer and compare AOL and Yahoo! with Google. The former pile on feature upon feature to their home pages, while Google is like an austere boutique, dominating a category filled with “extras.” Different shows how to succeed in a world where conformity reigns…but exceptions rule.
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

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Yep - I don't think that I said that particularly eloquently. And it was related to a point (that I can't remember) that had been brought up earlier in the conference.

But my overarching belief about product design: - build stuff you are passionate about because you use it - listen to customers, but don't do what they say

The reason that products all start to look the same is that customer's only experience of 'better' is a competitors product. That's why you have Audi's advertising about their safety record, and Volkswagon's advertising about their performance features.

A great read on this topic is Youngme Moon's book different: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...

marklittlewood
Young Me's book is definitely worth a read. I am really sad that we are not able to share that video at her own request. I did take some notes and grab some pictures which give a short summary of some of her arguments.

http://thebln.com/2010/10/professor-youngme-moon-business-of...

"Different" by Youngme Moon. This book was given out at the Business of Software 2010 conference, and she also spoke there. It's basically a call to arms for meaningful differentiation with organized business case studies of companies that have achieved it.

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...

Love Made to Stick and Founders at Work. I haven't read 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, but I'll check it out, thanks.

One excellent marketing book I recently read is Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon (no ref link: http://www.amazon.com/Different-Escaping-Competitive-Youngme...). She believes that going tit-for-tat on adding features and augmentations is a losing game that results in every competitor looking like one another. Instead, you should find your strength, and focus on that while resisting to focus on where your product falls short. The book is also very... poetic. She's quite a quotable writer. Good stuff.

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