Don’t worry about being first. Focus on being the best.

First-mover advantages are overrated. When you look at the most successful companies today, it's easy to imagine that they succeeded by being the first to market. The real story is often more nuanced.

Take Uber, famously arriving just as smartphones and GPS went mainstream, letting you hail a ride with a click. What this narrative leaves out is that several other ridesharing startups preceded Uber, including Taxi Magic and Zimride. Uber was not the first to build ridesharing on mobile, but we were the best at executing on the opportunity. Before Calm, there was Headspace. Before LinkedIn, there was Viadeo and Xing.

As a founder, it's critical to recognize that simply being first is not enough. First-mover advantages matter only if you accrue a durable competitive advantage, like network effects or economies of scale in winner-take-all markets. More often than not, simply being first to market doesn't offer a meaningful edge.

Build the best product, create the best user experience, and execute better than your competitors. This topic and many more in my Slush ‘23 talk on scaling product advantages - watch below: