The reason me-to products keep happening? A great GiddleBit answer for this one.
I was sitting in one of my business classes today, attempting to ascertain some amount of knowledge that would help me in the business world. There were a some such points where I learned something in between when I was explaining the power of blogs which my teacher felt was worth mentioning, but didn’t feel he could properly explain (Not to say that I know everything – not at all. But for the first few chapters, i’m familiar). Then, something very sad happened. My professor made the following statement when explaining the importance of competition to your business.
“If your competition is better than you, see how they do it and try to do it the same way. Try to imitate what they do so you can do it better.”
I kid you not. That last sentence really is as bad as it sounds. It’s no wonder we have me-to products coming out. It’s what us poor business students are taught. See what the competition does, copy that, and slap on a new feature to make it “better”. Honestly, I am both sad and happy about this. I’m sad that we’re subject to the promotion of me-to products. Conversely, I’m cynically happy that my classmates are committing this to their memory as a guideline. It means in the future, I get less intelligent competition. A me-to product is fine if you don’t mind second, third, fourth, etc. place. But I want first.
I am currently working on a personal research paper that analyzes the edges of a market in comparison to the “me-to middle” part of a market. I hope to have this written up nicely so I can hand it to my teacher before the end of the semester. Perhaps I can help future fellow business students.
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There is No Comfort, Only Opportunity. « GiddleBits // September 9, 2006 at 10:06 pm |
[...] For those who have time, I have an aside in what’s taught in the curriculum here that links in with the above in concerning taking an innovative risk or being a comfortable me-to. While I can’t say that I have any real evidence for it, I have always considered “Me-To” products to be a failure. That is to say, if I wanted to build a successful company that has the most significant market share in a given market, I would never consider me-to products, and would always consider innovation. This is nothing new, as Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow” concept of giving people something to talk about addresses it, and I’ve seen others touch on it. However, as I’ve stated previously education seems to be teaching us students to do me-to products, mainly because it’s safe. Just yesterday this was being reinforced in my marketing class as we were asked to examine the marketing concepts of FinagleaBagel. A bagel company that, at the outset of talking about its success, made a point to say that they are a “me-to” strategy. After we watched this documentary, the class was opened for discussion. I made it a point to say that I thought the me-to strategy was only a ’success’ because of the customer service they provide- which generally goes above the call of duty. They create something to talk about by providing customer service above the call of duty. I then continued in saying that I would really like to be able to pit this company up against a competitor of theirs who may have innovated in their industry. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about bagels. Posted by Nathan Filed in inspiration, Business, risk [...]