Small and mighty: 3 angles to help your startup take on big brands.

How many times have you sat back, head in your hands, and thought:

- how are we going to compete against that brand that spends loads on advertising? 
- getting big clients on board is great, but how will we be able to serve that customer?
- do we really need to ‘seem’ a bigger team to be taken seriously?

I’d say if you’re working in a startup, you’ve said yes to a few of these. 

Actually, you don’t need to be working in a startup to have heard these. I’ve worked in places where the sales team, when asked why they’re not closing business, will say ‘we aren’t credible yet as no one knows us’ or ‘we need to be at that event’.  

Le sigh. 

Ways to show your competitive advantage when you’re a startup. 

I attended SaaStock Remote - 2 days of online talks from super smart people, operating in b2b and b2c SaaS markets. One session that stood out was helping customers to understand what makes you better than your competition, run by April Dunford. (Yep, I’ve mentioned her and will continue to do so). 

When discussing how to show a potential customer why you’re different, she used the competitive framework of hordes > giants > ghosts. The aim was to show how to give your startup competitive advantage in a situation where you may feel you won’t win. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of her framework:  

Taking on the Hordes: 
If you operate in a saturated market, you have to fight where you can win. 

Taking on the Giants: 
If you’re up against a big brand, use their strength against them. 

Taking on the Ghosts: 
If the sale has gone quiet, realise there’s probably other forms of competitor at work. 

I liked this way of describing it this way. Plus, I’ve seen each strategy work in past businesses so I thought I’d give you a few examples to think about, apply and silence your sales person*. 

*I meant, give them the appropriate tools. 

Spoiler alert:

This post isn’t going to show you how to generate leads for your business - that’s a whole different area. What it is going to do is give you an idea of how to answer objections you get when you’re talking to a potential customer and are worried they’ll view the startup part of your business as a negative. 

Taking on the hordes, giants and ghosts:
Ways I’ve seen this work in previous startup situations. 

What to do when your startup is in a saturated market.

Competing in a saturated market where there is a lot of competition means you need to play to your strengths (i.e. what the customer actually wants and what you’re really good at). 

What do you offer that makes you different, and would take the market leader a long time to catch up with and challenge you? What’s important to your high value customer? (You know, the ones who’ll pay your bills?) 

A startup I worked for years back decided that we’d be many things to people and see which solution ‘stuck’. We were great at advertising; but, eager to increase the average order value, we then tried developing tech, we tried consultancy, we tried marketing support, we offered to train their teams.

Quelle surprise: the end result was we just about broke even. We were just a bit meh to our customers. And of those customers we won, servicing them was hard work. 

It’s because we weren’t delivering on the one thing we were really good at. We thought we needed to be something else to get the attention of a customer segment, but in reality, we just forgot to play by our strengths. 

What to do if you’re up against a brand with a big advertising budget. 

Startups can have a pretty hard time if they enter a market where there’s a big name dominating the space. Think about that CRM provider who tries to take on Salesforce or that marketing automation tool with Hubspot in its sights. 

One thing we learned early on, is if you’re in a market where there’s a big name occupying a lot of marketing space, use the competitor’s strength against them. 

Let’s say you’re a social media tool. If your competitor’s selling point is they have over 100 features, ask your customer - do they really need all 100? Or, do they need a core group of four or five that will let them do their job and genuinely give them value? 

A follow up to this is showing the customer that there’s a heap of features that they ain’t going to use, but they still have to pay for. Why should they pay for features someone else is using?

I’ve seen this in real-life.


There’s an assumption that bigger means better. Thousands more titles, the ability to send to thousands of emails, chatbots, cool features added every month which sound great, but honestly, I’m not going to use them. 

The offering that provides a niche or tailored experience that’s geared around helping me and the business to achieve a milestone - that’s the brand I’m likely to use.

What to do if they go really quiet. Who are you competing against now? 

Apparently, 20% of deals are lost to a decision not being made. 

I thought this was a really interesting stat because there’s been times when you talk with a potential customer, they seem really interested, you’ve raised the invoice… validation at last! But then it falls silent. Or, you hear they’ve decided to prioritise something else or found an alternative. 

That’s okay, these things happen. But if you’re like me, you’re inquisitive. You want to know if there’s something not quite right. Who or what are you competing against?

A great way to look at this is based on an example I heard Bob Moesta, the jobs to be done guy, share: 

Who’s the biggest competitor to the world’s leading mattress manufacturer? 

You’d most likely search and try to list off a range of mattress brands. 

Apparently, it’s more likely to be whiskey, painkillers or going for a run. 

Not a mattress brand in sight. 

When it comes to your prospects you need to realise there’s other stuff going on in their lives, other solutions presenting themselves as the customer learns more. 

The mistake we made once. 

There was one instance in a previous business where we realised that we’d tried to do such a good job at educating our prospects on the market and the solutions available, we’d taught them how to buy someone else and worse still, how to replicate the service themselves. Oops. 

So what happens if your prospect has gone quiet?

You need to create urgency, a reason for them to buy now. 

Maybe you have access to a pipeline of talent now that’ll take ages to replicate themselves. Maybe they’ve said they’ll create the videos themselves.

Well, square it with them. How long will that process take? Months, a year? Have they got time to wait for that or should they go with you to start the project sooner? What expertise are you offering them? And is it time-bound.

Got any more angles you can share with readers?

Give me a shout at @lucy_heskins on Twitter if you’ve got any suggestions to add to the list, to get those sales people off your back and help alleviate your startup marketing efforts.