Omar Zenhom says bootstrap founders lose by trying to serve everyone. Big competitors beat them on the same ground with bigger budgets and brand recognition. Instead, carve out a specific underserved niche where you can't be out-marketed.
Let me tell you the number one strategic error I see bootstrap founders make over and over again when they go up against well-resourced competitors. They try to serve everyone. They look at the big players and they look at what they offer, the broad services they offer. And then I see these bootstrap companies trying to compete on that same territory with a fraction of the resources of these huge players, and they get crushed. Obviously they do, because the big player does not need to win the whole market to beat you. They just need to win the customers that you are also chasing, okay? They just need to take away enough customers from you to put you out of business. And they have more marketing budget, they have more brand recognition, they have more distribution than you'll ever have. So the answer is not to fight on their ground. The answer is to find your own ground. How do you do that? You niche down. I'm telling you right now that it's very hard to convince people to buy when you're trying to speak to everybody. I always say when you try to speak to everybody, you're speaking to nobody.
