I get asked this a lot after I speak. Someone comes up to me, coffee in hand, and says something like “so how do we actually GET competitive advantage.” Like it’s a thing you can order off Amazon and have delivered by Tuesday.
It’s not. And honestly, most companies are chasing the wrong version of it entirely.
The Definition Everyone Skips Past
Competitive advantage in business just means you can do something better, cheaper, or differently than everyone else in your space, and you can keep doing it long enough that it actually matters. That’s it.
But a lot of biz leaders think competitive advantage is a slide in a strategy deck. It’s not. It’s a decision you make every single day, in a hundred small ways, about what you’re willing to do that your competitors aren’t.
I learned this the hard way with Swiggies. When I started, I didn’t have funding, I didn’t have a factory, and I definitely didn’t have a team of engineers. What I had was a clay prototype and a stubborn refusal to give up. That wasn’t a competitive advantage on paper. But it turned into one, bc I was willing to do the unglamorous work nobody else wanted to touch. I turned that clay prototype into a NASDAQ-winning invention that’s sold over a million units around the world with no advertising. My competitive advantage is IP that few inventors ever get. An incontestable registered trade dress.
Where Companies Get It Wrong
Most companies think competitive advantage in business comes from having more. More budget, more headcount, more tech. And sure, that helps. But I’ve spoken to Fortune 500 rooms full of smart, well funded people who still can’t tell you what actually makes them different.
Here’s the problem. They’re benchmarking against competitors instead of building from their own strengths. They look sideways instead of inward. And that’s backwards.
Real competitive advantage usually comes from something a little uncomfortable. Or what you do that nobody else does.
Three Places Competitive Advantage Actually Hides
Your weird origin story. Every company has one. Mine involves passing out from dehydration while I was out running in the Texas heat. That story became the foundation of a product that’s now sold over a million units in 25 countries. Your origin story isn’t just a nice bio for the About page. It often holds the exact insight your competitors are missing.
The problem you’re closest to. You don’t need a research team to find competitive advantage. You need to be paying closer attention than anyone else to the actual problem you’re solving. I didn’t invent Swiggies because I studied the wrist hydration market. I invented it because I was a runner who passed out from dehydration. Proximity to the problem beats data every time.
What you’re willing to do that others won’t. This one’s underrated. Sometimes competitive advantage isn’t a secret formula. It’s just showing up more consistently, following up faster, or caring more visibly than the company down the street. Boring? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
Why This Matters More Today
AI has leveled a lot of playing fields. Tools that used to take a team of specialists can now be run by one person with the right prompt. Which means the old sources of competitive advantage, having more resources, more people, more capital, matter less than they used to.
What matters more now is judgment. Taste. The willingness to try something before it’s proven. That’s actually good news for smaller companies and solo founders, because it means you don’t need a massive budget to compete. You need clarity about what you’re actually good at, and the guts to lean into it hard.
How I Coach Teams to Find Theirs
When I work with a company on this, I don’t start by asking what their competitors are doing. I ask what they do that nobody else does.
That question usually surfaces the real answer faster than any SWOT analysis ever will.
I also ask leadership teams to think about their “unfair advantages.” Not unfair in a shady way, unfair in the sense of things that are genuinely hard for competitors to copy. Relationships you’ve built over yrs. Manufacturing knowledge that took a decade to earn. A brand story that’s simply true and can’t be faked. Or in my case intellectual property that is stronger than a patent.
Competitive Advantage Strategy
Competitive advantage isn’t a strategy you buy. It’s a truth you already have, that you haven’t fully claimed yet. Most companies are sitting on it and don’t even know it, because they’re too busy watching everyone else instead of looking at what makes them different in the first place.
If you’re trying to figure out where your competitive advantage is hiding, start with the story you tell least often. That’s usually where you’ll find it.
If you want to bring this kind of thinking into your next leadership offsite or all hands, that’s exactly the conversation I love having on stage as a competitive advantage speaker.