Don’t be better, be different: How creative founders win by filling gaps in the market

A lot of founders start their businesses with a single goal: to be better than their competition. They look at the landscape and think, “I can do that—but I’ll do it better.”

The problem with that is, you guessed it: everyone else is thinking the exact same thing. It’s a noisy, crowded road where everyone fights to outdo each other on the same old metrics.

What if, instead of focusing on being better, you aimed to be different? Let’s explore what this idea could mean for creative founders and startups.

The long-term advantage of being different

When you focus on being different rather than just better, you start creating a natural moat around your business. Instead of getting lost in a sea of similar options, you carve out a unique space in the market—a space where you serve a specific subset of customers exceptionally well.

This strategy isn’t about spreading yourself thin by trying to excel at everything. Instead, it’s about building stronger differentiation and serving a niche so thoroughly that your audience can’t imagine going anywhere else.

In the long run, this approach can create brand loyalty that competitors simply can’t replicate overnight. When you’re deeply invested in a part of the market others overlook, customers feel that difference, and they respond with loyalty.

Finding the gaps in the market

Of course, it’s easier said than done to decide, “I’ll be different.” So how do you identify those underexplored areas that your competitors have overlooked?

A few strategies to try:

• SWOT Analysis: Start with a good old-fashioned SWOT analysis—not just of your own business, but of your competitors. Look for weaknesses and gaps in the market they aren’t serving well—it’s usually a good place to start.
• Customer Interviews & Surveys: Talk to people. Your audience will tell you what’s missing. Surveys, interviews, and casual conversations can reveal gap in the market in existing offerings that aren’t being addressed.
• Social Listening: What are people complaining about in your industry on social media? What frustrations keep coming up? Where there are complaints, there’s opportunity.
• Jobs to Be Done Framework: Dive into the Jobs to Be Done framework, which focuses on understanding the ‘job’ customers are trying to accomplish when they hire a product or service. Uncovering these core motivations often reveals unmet needs.

Success stories: Companies that focused on being different

Some of the best startup success stories come from companies that decided to zig when everyone else zagged.

Take Notion, for example. They didn’t aim to just make a slightly better note-taking app. They focused on versatility and simplicity—essentially, they wanted to be an all-in-one workspace where no other tool could match their adaptability. They found the gap between productivity tools that did one thing well and created a solution that brought everything together.

Or look at Blinkist. Instead of competing directly with longer-form content or other e-book platforms, Blinkist carved out a niche that spoke to the busy professional: concise, 15-minute summaries of popular non-fiction books. They didn’t try to compete head-on with Audible or Kindle—they filled a gap for people who wanted knowledge, fast.

And then there’s Away, the luggage brand. They saw an industry full of boring, black suitcases and added elements that travelers didn’t even know they needed—USB chargers, organized compartments, and a design that felt fresh. Away didn’t try to make “better” luggage by industry standards—they designed luggage for the modern traveler who was being ignored.

The risks of differentiation (and how to manage them)

Of course, aiming to be different carries its own set of risks. The biggest one? You might be focused on the wrong thing.

Differentiation for the sake of standing out can actually lead you farther away from what the market actually wants. If you’re not careful, you might end up creating something no one needs. There is a long list of dead businesses that had this problem.

The best way to mitigate these risks is to stay anchored in your audience’s needs. Keep your core business competitive, but tweak norms and status quos to ensure you stand out. Continually validate your ideas with your market—talk to customers, gather feedback, and adapt—over and over again.

Yes, be different, but make sure that difference is meaningful, useful, and driven by genuine market needs. It’s about balance.

Wrapping up

Focusing on one or two standout features can have incredible long-term impact for founders competing in a crowded market. In doing so, you’ll build loyalty, drive innovation, and carve out a unique identity that customers remember and love.

So stop obsessing over being 10% better than your competition. Start looking for gaps in the market they’re missing entirely. That’s where the real magic happens. That’s where you build something so unique and defensible that competitors can’t touch you.