Some small business start-ups are the result of an owner's desire to share their passion with the world. The business is an extension of who they are, their view on the world and their unique approach to whatever makes them tick. The business serves as an exhibition, a showcase and a share-and-exchange point for the subject of interest.
This all makes the world a richer place to experience and other people will find this enjoyable and even contagious. The majority of people will admire, appreciate and encourage the entrepreneur, curious to see what new innovation is about to pop out next.
But alas, the world is not a perfect place. There will be others that feel deprived of the perceived limelight. They will try to outdo, outsmart and outshine the entrepreneur. These people are not entrepreneurs at heart, they are followers ... copy-cats ... fame chasers. Their focus and intention is the limelight, the status and what (they think) people are thinking of them. At heart, they are angry at themselves for not coming up with the (attention-catching) idea in the first place, and they feel that making the money will compensate for this. They want to prove that they are a force to be reckoned with.
This all would be OK if the entrepreneur would be able to ignore the other crowd as a secondary offspring of the entrepreneur's creativity. Normally the other crowd will tend to attract their type of person to what they are doing, and all can live happily ever after.
Easier said than done. The problem is that while the entrepreneur is focusing on his / her passion, the other crowd has nothing to focus on (except of course ... our entrepreneur.)
The other crowd are reasoning that by being close followers, most of the people will be confused about who is who. The other crowd will tend to spend a lot of money and effort on being visible and being prominent. The are reasoning that as long as the entrepreneur is surviving, and they are following close enough, they will also be able to survive.
If this was the only dynamic, all would still be fine and OK. The problem arises when the entrepreneur loses focus. By being "in your face" constantly like the other crowd is, the entrepreneur can't help but to become aware of their actions. As soon as the entrepreneur takes this personally (which is 100% human), he/she can easily lose focus.
As soon as the entrepreneur starts to focus on the other crowd we have a mess in the making. The passion is lost, the joy is gone. Suddenly the market is totally forgotten. It is now all about strategy and predicting the other crowd's next move.
It is about forgetting the ball and playing the other team. And the risk is that soon the two teams might be fighting each other in the middle of the field, while the spectators are busy leaving the stadium, demanding their money back.
