“Do you get intimidated by your competition?”

I was recently invited back to my high school to speak to the business students about Uncle Jack and what it looks like to turn your idea into a growing business. When I arrived I learnt that the students were doing their assignment on me and my presentation. They were certainly very attentive! As the presentation unraveled and the students became more familiar with what I was doing in the world of entrepreneurship they naturally had a lot of questions. One of those questions was brilliant. Although simple, I thought that it was important enough for me to write an article on this question alone.

During the presentation I mentioned that Uncle Jack was competing with companies that had been around for decades. Although we only have a minuscule budget in comparison to these giants, we do have one key advantage. We are a lot better at listening to our customers & the market in comparison to our competitors. For the last 20 years, these corporate giants have been pumping out the same style of watch over and over again and expecting people to buy them. And hey, people are buying them! However, with a trend towards ‘minimal fashion’ emerging quickly, large corporates failed to adjust quickly. In early 2014 I saw an opportunity to enter the market with a simple, fashionable and reasonably priced product that would attract the social & fashion conscious consumer. In the first full financial year we generated over a million dollars in revenue. The foundation of the quick success was based upon our ability to observe the market and it’s trends better than what the corporate giants could do in a short-space of time.

Anyway, back to the question. At the end of the presentation one girl seated on the far left said to me; “do you get intimidated by your competition?”. I really had to think about it for a second. Did I?

My answer was this; No. I’m not intimidated by the competition. Although our competition is far-reaching with huge budgets and established market share, I’m not intimidated. We prefer to be the best boutique alternative. Something cooler, a product more desirable yet less pretentious.
However, we certainly keep an eye on what our competition is doing because we’d be silly not to. It can be a slippery slope for any business to imitate or have knee-jerk reactions to what competitors are doing. There’s no ‘right’ way and every business has a different story to tell. You’ve got to carve your own path, have belief in your product, in your team & ultimately your vision.

For us at Uncle Jack, our vision is the most important driver of business decisions. I instill the vision in every team member and everything that they do should be to get us closer to our vision. Our vision at Uncle Jack is to be the ‘go-to online destination for fresh, desirable & affordable watches’. Every aspect of our business from customer experience, to social media to new product development will be guided by customer trends, maximising the customer experience and ultimately achieving our vision.

No, I’m not intimidated by our competition. We’re here to run our own race & establish our own legacy.