How to differentiate in a crowded Market? What I know - Part 2

Here are the two questions I have heard from my clients in 2025. I changed their industry, domain as well as use cases so I can share it with everyone. 

Hope these help you grow and scale. 

Question - The space I am in is crowded. There are players who exist for more than a decade. How do we differentiate ourselves? 

A2 - I collaborated for a decade plus with many customers as well as sales professionals. Based on that I can suggest how you can differentiate. Hope you understand that I am suggesting these based on the limited knowledge I have and the very limited time we spent together. 

First - think about what are gaps in the market. This is the hardest of all the steps. The gaps in the market can be product, quality, service and so on. As the market matures and players become decade plus in the market; they leave clues about the gaps. 

Then see how your product can fill the gap. It can be with the price itself. With a lower price point you can penetrate the market and get the initial traction. 

If you wish to read theory, I suggest these frameworks. There are others as well. 

• Delight your customers/ users. There may be some gaps but these delighters satisfy the customers/ users and make them happy. 

• If the market is crowded, think about a Blue strategy framework which suggests how to play in a red ocean and find your blue ocean to sail forward. 

• SWOT analysis also helps. 

• Consider upcoming technical trends. Examples are bluetooth, camera, cloud, IOT and now Ai. Build around it. 

We need to run a competitive study which compares all existing players on above and other criteria. It also helps to do supplier and other ecosystem player interviews to understand additional insights. Based on these we can decide which segment we should enter and dominate.  

In addition to these, we should have some technical, supply chain strengths which we can capitalize on. I will follow this approach, experiment in an area, learn from it and iterate faster. 

I hope this helps. 

Question - Who can be our most promising target audience? Not sure about b2c or b2b. How should we proceed? 

Answer - Hypothesis - b2c will give us more volume and revenue. 

Now, for b2c; select a channel. E-commerce, quick-commerce, or Social media. Let's say you select Amazon. Post all light bulbs there with pricing, reviews, videos, etc. You will need a strong positioning and message. Examples that come to my mind right now - thinnest bulb, technically most advanced, lowest energy and so on. In 45 days you should be able to complete the end to end journey from selling to delivery, installation and happy customers. Gauge the CAC and other metrics for this channel. 

Now for b2b select a metro city. Reach a builder (example) with commercial property and sell locks to them. Complete the end to end journey from closing sale, fixing, payment and customer satisfaction. Gauge the CAC in here. 

So in six months you will know which channel to double down on. That channel will become your core channel. However if the lowest channel is more than 15% of revenue, try it for some more time. 

Consider volume, profit and cost per unit sold in revenue and not just revenue. 

Target audience, positioning, message, channel optimisation should be re-assessed after every 2 years or so based on the business and seasonality you are in. 

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Swagat Irsale is a Growth and Scale Advocate. He works with start ups and scale ups and helps them grow revenue and build enterprise products which users use.

You can connect with him on Linked in.

Picture - some countries differentiate themselves really well.

Food for thought.