Evan Carmichael answers a viewer worried about a competitor launching first. His advice: treat market opportunities like trains—miss one, another comes—and focus on out-executing competitors rather than being first. Passion and relentless improvement win in the long run.
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What do you do when somebody beats you to market? I'm going to answer that question in today's episode of Lunch and Earn. So I recently got asked a question from a good friend of mine that I haven't gotten back to in a while. Really sorry, Tailesh. Tailesh wrote in to say, "Hey Evan, I've been working on a project that's been something I enjoy and also really needed by my community for the past few months. Unfortunately, never put as much time or effort into it as I would like, as it is currently a secondary project. I also have possibly a problem pursuing perfect instead of good." As a result, others in my field who have also identified the need for what I'm working on recently beat me to the punch and launched a very similar project with an extremely similar name only days before I finally got my act together. I am too disheartened to continue or even go through with my launch right now. How do I make this work? Talessh. Talessh, I really feel for you, man. When I first read this, I actually thought you said you couldn't go through with your lunch instead of your launch. I know I was stressing out that you weren't eating, so I'm glad that you are. And I have 3 bits of advice that I think will help you. Number 1: Understand that opportunities are like trains. If some get derailed, there's a new train always coming along. In my field, I could think of tons of ideas and different ways that I could help entrepreneurs, and I'm sure the more you get involved in your industry and your field, you'll find others. So if one doesn't work out, that's okay. You don't want to get so disheartened and so down on yourself that you stop doing everything new, right? A new trend is coming along, there's always a new opportunity, just keep looking for ways to help out your customers. Number 2 is you have to be passionate about it. Honestly, honestly, this is like some harsh truth, my feeling is if you were spending months and just making slow progress on this and it was a side thing for you, you didn't really have the passion to turn it into something bigger, right? When I'm excited about something, I'm up until 3 in the morning trying to find ways. I'm thinking about on my weekends, right? That a side project is just a hobby and it's something that you do every now and then. Fine, whatever. But it's not something that you are obsessed with, right? When I, when I was obsessed with snowboarding, I would find ways to put off meetings and not go to the office and not get work done so I can go snowboarding, right? It was like, it was a huge passion of mine. When you're in relationship and you're in love with someone, you find ways to help them and do nice things to them and surprise them. Things that might not make total sense, and you put other things off to go out and accomplish it. And so the same thing happens in business. When you love what you're doing, you find ways to get it done. You stay up late, you do extra research. When you're having showers and playing with your friends, you're thinking about other ideas you can do to make this idea work better. You're just more passionate about it. And so I honestly wouldn't worry that much about losing this idea to somebody else because I would rather you focus on something that you are really you're really excited about, something that makes you come alive, and something that you are willing to put other things aside for to focus on. And that, that idea, that train is coming. Number 3 is out-execute them. Having the idea and being first to market is usually not the game. It's much more about can you execute and be better than them. So who cares if they got the product out there first, right? If you love this thing so much and you're potentially the best in the world at creating this, just out-execute them. Make it better. When I've made these videos on YouTube, I'm not the first guy to make videos on YouTube. I had an idea that's different, I love it, and I am just out-executing other channels, and that's why we're getting thousands and thousands more subscribers than they are. So if you love the idea and you know that this is a train that you want to be on, just focus on out-executing your competition, because the only real competition Who's this guy? So I hope that helped, Taalish. Good luck, keep me posted, and I promise you I won't take months to get back to you this time when you write back. And for those of you watching, I'd love to know how you have handled that situation. I'd love to know what you think about somebody else being first to market and how you reacted to it. Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I'm going to join in the discussion. So thank you so much for watching, continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.
