Your competitors just launched three new features. Your team is scrambling to match them. Six months from now, you’ll all have the same capabilities, and customers still won’t be able to tell you apart.
This is the trap of “better.” It feels productive. It feels safe. But it’s a treadmill that never stops, and the finish line keeps moving.
The Trap of “Better”
Being better means playing by the same rules as everyone else, just trying to score a few extra points. Faster, cheaper, prettier, more efficient. It’s an arms race of marginal improvements.
The problem? When everyone optimizes for “better,” no one stands out. “Better” fades into the background as the market quickly catches up. You exhaust your team chasing incremental gains, while your competitors do the same. Everyone ends up looking identical.
That’s why Samsung can load a phone with a thousand features and still feel interchangeable, while Apple, with fewer, feels distinct. Apple isn’t just better; it’s different (this is Apple’s brand power). Its difference comes from a worldview: simplicity, elegance, focus.
The Power of True Difference
Being different means rewriting the rules entirely. It’s not a new feature; it’s a new philosophy.
Tesla didn’t make a better car. It made driving electric desirable and software-driven. Airbnb didn’t build better hotels; it redefined what “home” means when you travel. Netflix didn’t make better TV; it made the concept of television obsolete.
Notice what these companies did: They didn’t ask “What can we do better?” They asked, “What assumption can we break?”
- Tesla broke: “Electric cars are for environmentalists.”
- Airbnb broke: “Travel lodging requires professional hospitality.”
- Netflix broke: “Content needs programming schedules.”
True difference creates new categories. It changes how people think, not just what they buy.
What “Different” Looks Like in Practice
The objection you’re thinking: “Easy for Apple to be different when you’re Apple. What about me? I can’t afford to be different. My stakeholders demand proof, and proof comes from what’s already working for others.”
The reality: Being different doesn’t require a billion-dollar R&D budget. It requires deciding what you won’t do.
Here’s what “different” looks like at any scale:
- A consulting firm that refuses RFPs and only works through direct outreach because they believe the best client relationships start with trust, not procurement
- A SaaS company that eliminates features instead of adding them because they know complexity kills adoption
- An innovation team that measures “questions asked” instead of “ideas generated” because they understand that better questions lead to breakthrough thinking.
- A manufacturer that shows customers their production failures because transparency builds deeper trust than perfection ever could
Different doesn’t mean radical. It means intentional. It means standing for something specific, even when it costs you opportunities that don’t align.
The Courage to Be Different
Being different is harder because it requires conviction. It means ignoring what the competition is doing and listening instead to what you believe about the world.
It means accepting that some people won’t get it. That you’ll lose deals to competitors who check more boxes. That you’ll have uncomfortable conversations with stakeholders who want you to “just do what works.”
But once you commit, something magical happens: You stop competing, and you start leading. You stop reacting to the market, and you start shaping it.
Finding Your Difference
The work isn’t finding your difference; it’s having the courage to commit to it when everyone around you is optimizing for “better.”
Start here: What’s the one assumption in your industry that everyone treats as law? The belief that’s so embedded, no one even questions it anymore?
That’s where your difference lives.
Maybe it’s “faster is always better,” or “customers want more options,” or “we need to be everything to everyone.” Whatever it is, that assumption is your opening.
Because when you break it, you’re not just different. You’re building something the market didn’t know it needed, until you showed them.
Bottom line: Better is incremental. Different is exponential. Better competes in today’s market. Different creates tomorrow. The question isn’t whether you can afford to be different. It’s whether you can afford not to be.
