Why competition is awesome

A conversation that keeps coming up for me at the minute is what do I think about my competition?! My answer quite simply is 'it's awesome'.

I have always grown up to look at competition in a positive light and it has been such a huge part of my life, from my days as a Great Britain trampolinist to my most recent time of starting my own business.

I have been lucky enough to meet with some of the owners/founders of some of my competitor companies who are great and have massively inspired and continue to inspire me. So I thought I would jot down a few reasons why I think competition is not only awesome but necessary;

1. Innovation: One of the great things about competition is that it keeps challenging companies to not stop for fear of being left behind. Whether this be advances in technology, product alterations or improved customer service this constant strive to do better can only be a good thing not only for you as a business but for customers as well.
2. Motivation: Not only for founders/business leaders but for the company as a whole. If leadership are motivated and motivating then this will naturally have a knock on effect throughout the company. Motivation can sometimes be one of the most challenging things a company can face so if competition can inspire us then surely it's a good thing?
3. Education: Constant learning and development is key for any company success and who better to learn off (good and bad) than people who are doing/have done a similar thing. Learn from what is and isn't working in their world, instead of spending lots of money on research and development have they done something before that hasn't/has work...why did it? Delve deep...learn...do!
4. Category Development: Anybody who has been following my journey or knows me will know i've started a cold brew coffee company (Fitch Brew Co), and although as a category in other parts of the world it's starting to get pretty darn big, in the UK we are very much in the infancy stage of the category. Having a few players in the same field does a couple of things;

• It validates the idea: It must be worrying and challenging to be the only company operating within a category, you must think 'is my idea actually any good if no one else seems to want to do it?'. However, when more and more companies start popping up and 'wanting a slice of the pie' then it can only serve to validate what you are doing and show there is a clear consumer demand.
• Collaboration: We really are (and rightly so) moving towards being a nation of collaborators. Never has this been more seen than within Craft Beer. I'm obviously ex-BrewDog and one thing i loved about the culture of the craft beer world was the collaborations within it. Right at the beginning of the category in the UK a few craft beer companies got together and said 'how do we work together to make this a thing?'....and well, it would be pretty hard to say this technique didn't work. I think that when a category is in its early stages collaboration can be especially powerful, the more soldiers in your army the better right?