Finding Another Way
It's not enough to do the same thing as our competition. To win in a crowded field, we have to focus on what we need to do different.
Oh hey, how's it going.
A couple of weekends ago my daughter raced in her first high school state mountain bike race, and the conditions were a mess. It's a pretty technical course on a dry day, but with the La Nina conditions that've been hitting southern Colorado it was wet and slimy and pretty challenging. There were lots of crashes and lots of mid race strategy changes.
These are huge and crowded fields of kids. Each category had over a hundred riders on the course at a time and the ability levels vary greatly.
But they're all out there competing on the exact same trail and most are taking pretty much the same lines through the course. That is, until one rider finds an opportunity to do something different, maybe attack on a climb when no one is expecting it or taking a different line to pass at just the right moment.
And boy, isn't that a great analogy for what we do as brands as we compete in these crowded categories.
It's not enough to do the same thing as our competition. To win in a crowded field, we have to focus on what we need to do different.
We've been putting a lot of brands through our Blur Report recently, which is a great tool we created for brands to see where they're doing the same things as their competitors, but it also lays out opportunities to find their own line. They're own trail. And break away from the competition.
That's what we get excited about at Walden Hyde.
Because just like in a bike race, seeing what the competition is doing is just the beginning. The real opportunity comes when you find a different, and better, way through.
Maybe that's something worth thinking about as you're planning for 2027.
If you stopped following the line your competitors are taking, what other possibilities might open up?
We'll see you out there.
Robb
