Re:Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” respon...
by MisterPea on Tuesday February 14, 2023 @12:14PM
(#34792525)
First movers without a fast follower is a huge advantage. There's a great conference talk with Bezos about how he mentioned with disruptive products, there's usually a fast follower entering into the competition - but he was surprised at how long it took other companies to copy AWS.
Similarly with Tesla
I don't think there's any question that there is an advantage to being a first mover. What I think is a mistake is thinking that it's an absolute advantage, and/or not recognizing that it's also true that there are advantages to to not being the first mover. I mean, there's a reason why the "fast follower strategy"[1] exists as well.
I think in reality though, all of this is over-simplifying things. There are a LOT of variables in the equation for "does this product succeed or not" where "being first to market" is just one of those variables.
[1]: https://fourweekmba.com/fast-follower/