What's Setting You Apart From Your Competitors? Tick these boxes and you'll attract funding attention. An investor is interested in two things - what are the barriers to entry in your industry, and can you keep potential competitors out of your market?

Getting a start-up company on its feet can be a very daunting task. There might be many big dogs out there that potentially threaten a start-up business. Competition is healthy, but it could also be costly and catastrophic for a fledgling business.

Who are you?

Before a start-up company enters the marketplace, guns blazing, it's important for the company to first know itself. By knowing your company it creates surety and confidence in the team, which in turn directly reflects on potential investors.

Start-ups should therefore consider what makes them unique in terms of their products and/or services, who the target market is, who the competitors are, what their strategy is and whether they have a suitable team to meet the company's requirements.

One mechanism by which a company can gain a massive head start from their competition and solidify their position in the market is through the strategic use of intellectual property. Intellectual property provides a mechanism by which exclusive rights can be obtained to specific goods or services that the start-up has developed.

Should your company be in the business of exploiting niches in the industry, intellectual property will enable you to solidify the unique value proposition you provide through your services or goods offering.

Defensible differentiators

A start-up that creates a product or service that is not easy to replicate, obtains absolute ownership over how and when that product or service is replicated (through the strategic use of intellectual property) and creates a long-standing network that leads to a sustainable competitive advantage.

A start-up should make use of these legal tools that are available and build their own "Great Wall of China' by being defensible. This automatically turns the competitors into inferiors.

Another aspect of perhaps equal importance is a company's reputation. A start-up's reputation lies in its product and/or service. If a company produces or delivers a poor or disappointing product or service, this mirrors the company itself and detrimentally affects its reputation. Reputation is everything, it's invaluable and ever-lasting.

Maintain your reputation

In order to improve an undesirable reputation, the focus should be on strategic planning. A successful start-up has a strategy in place that includes a detailed business plan and model. An eager, ambitious and fruitful strategic plan is also a favourable indication to potential investors.
By keeping up with the competitors and maintaining a desirable reputation, a start-up has already laid down its roots and can only grow upward.

It's important to identify the target market as it is beneficial to obtain feedback from clients and customers in order to establish your reputation and status, and build on it.

Know your competition

Further, and most importantly, it's paramount to know your competitors. By knowing your competitors you learn from their weaknesses and build and improve on their strengths. Investors can observe a start-up's comparativeness by considering whether it's "a step ahead' and whether it keeps up with, and creates, trends.

A start-up may identify and better their views on their target market and competitors by placing themselves in the shoes of a customer or client. More specifically, by considering and evaluating the positive and negative aspects and experiences the customer will experience when engaging with the start-up, and acting on insights gained.

An investor is likely to have a similar mindset to a potential customer or client and can provide a start-up with a differentiation factor that sets it apart from others in the industry.

The future is yours

It's also important to keep in mind that a start-up is not generally only novel but it's young and formless, a mere piece of clay that may be formed into anything. Start-ups should use these strengths as advantages in developing an outstandingly unique and unforgettable business.

Additionally, start-ups do not necessarily have the overheads that many competitors might have. A start-up can therefore provide products and deliver services more flexibly, which is a magnet for customers'.