For creative entrepreneurs, taking action can seem obvious. Let’s just get started already! 

You have the ideas, you know what you want to do. Now let’s do it!

But wait a minute. Sometimes the best action you can take is to do your homework. 

What do I mean by that? Well, before you go pell-mell down the path toward starting a new company, you need to know what else exists that might be similar. Who might be a competitor? 

Example

For example, when I was starting the Shady Ladies Literary Society (shadyladiesliterarysociety.com), my idea was to bring emerging women authors to Detroit for an evening of good food and conversation in unique locations. Our tagline is "It’s book club, but better."

It started with this problem: There are very few ways for emerging authors, especially women, to get their books and stories in front of audiences. Publishers don’t often pay for book tours, and bookstores can’t afford to bring writers unless they are already coming on book tour. 

So I came up with my solution, which was to crate a platform to support emerging women writers. See how that’s not a product? Rather it is an idea that a lot of different products can be a part of. The first is the event series. 

I have a million ideas of how we can develop this business from just events to a full-fledged brand. Podcast! Subscription box! Reviews! Community! Book clubs! 

But before I can get started on any of those, I need to do my research on who my competitors might be. Other bookstores doing events? Libraries hosting authors? Pop-up dinner series? Who else has a similar idea to mine? 

It turns out, there are a bunch of dinner series — or there were pre-pandemic — but not really focused on the niche of dinner-cocktails-women writers. So that was what I knew made me stand out and would help me reach my audience of others interested in dinner-cocktails-women writers. 

Assignment Specifics

This week, you’re going to do your homework for your business pitch from Week Five.  

I want you to research your competitors for that business idea. Does the product/idea you pitched already exist? If so, who else is out there doing what you’re proposing? Remember, if your startup is focused on a specific geography — like landscaping services in East Lansing — you are looking for competitors in that area. (Lawn care services in Chicago probably aren’t coming for your customers!) If your startup is an app or something that isn’t constrained by geography, your competitors can be anywhere. 

Please prepare a 500-word written document that includes the following: 

1. Fill in the blanks of this statement: My idea was X and it was solving problem Y. (That way I remember your idea!)

2. A list of 3 competitors you identified.

3. An analysis of how what you are creating is different from what is already out there. (If there are no competitors, tell me why you think nobody else has executed your idea.)

4. Is your idea an example of H-Creativity or P-Creativity? Why?

5. How did you research your competitors?

6. What did you learn? 

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