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From Guy Kawasaki's "Protecting Your Pitch": Most entrepreneurs misunderstand the objective of [competitive advantage], which is not to enumerate all the deficiencies of the competition (as much fun as that may be). Just because you have really cool technology does not mean you will win. You need to convince the investor that lots of folks will buy your product or service, even though they have several alternatives. And don’t forget that the toughest competitor is often the status quo—most prospective customers can muddle on without buying your solution or your competitor’s solution. The best way to convince an investor that you really do have a better mousetrap is to have referenceable customers or prospects articulate in their own words why they bought or will buy your offering over the alternatives. Use this slide to summarize the three or four key reasons why customers prefer your solution to other solutions.
Brilliant. And it's so true that a "visionary" will often make small incremental changes to an existing product that address its deficiencies, while failing to realize that the existing product is popular despite these deficiencies -- so the changes often aren't compelling enough to encourage a customer to jump ship. Simply improving the status quo is not enough.
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