The First-Mover Advantage: Your Shot To Make It Big
Being the first doesn’t make you the best, but it gives you a heck of an advantage.
A little story
When I graduated from Law School in Spain, my peers were battling in the field to secure an internship to work 12 hours a day for one of the Big 4 and earn peanuts and a badge on their CV.
I decided to move to China instead. This was 2003 and people told me I was crazy. However, the risk paid off. Learning Mandarin and understanding how to do business in the Red Giant enabled me to get incredible job and life opportunities and buy my first flat in my 20s.
Sometimes, you don’t have to be the best: you have to be bold and dare to be the first.
What’s the first-mover advantage?
Many iconic brands are leaders because they entered the market first and planted their flag in unchartered territory.
Coca-Cola was among the pioneers in the soda drinks industry. It grew, became a household name and planted deep roots among the consumers before they even had a choice. When Pepsi followed, although it did extremely well, it never reached the same level of success as its biggest competitor.
When Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007, it didn’t just create a fancy product; it created a new market, gaining the hearts of consumers who were seduced into smartphones. That allowed the tech giant to build a brand, loyalty, and advocacy from fans around the world. More recently, the same happened with the Apple Watch which dominates 30% of the global smartwatch market in 2024.
That’s what first-mover advantage means.
The notion was developed in 1988 by 2 professors at Stanford Business School, Lieberman and Montgomery, and still applies in the business world today.
You can read other cool examples here.
Being the first is a bold move, and doing something new is often criticized until the masses follow and it becomes mainstream. By then, it’s too late, and you missed the train.
Being a pioneer puts you in the pole position by default because there’s no one else in the field so you get to set the bar. As a firstcomer, you have the benefit of a head start and the privilege of hitting a virgin timer. If you are right, everybody else will have to play catch up.
That first-mover advantage translates into brand recognition, credibility, and loyalty.
And the bigger the risk, the bigger the advantage.
The first influencers were criticized when they started using social media to build a following; now they amass 7-figure businesses based on their personal brand.
The first Tiktokers were mocked when they posted their first videos. Many are now millionaires making up to 6 figures per post.
The first crypto enthusiasts saw their investment reach stratospheric levels but they had to hold tight while finance experts called it a scam.
Prompt engineers are among the best-paid jobs worldwide, with annual salaries of 300,000+US$ in the USA, but they had to get ahead of the curve and bet on new technology before it became mainstream.
Let’s bring it home
What can we learn from the first-mover advantage and how can we extrapolate it to the creators’ world?
Here is an idea…
The next big thing already exists – we just don’t know about it yet.
It’s baking in the incubator and someone will bet on it and win big time.
Why not me?
Why not you?
This perspective challenges us to keep our eyes open and look for the next big platform, the rising technology, the next out-of-the-box business model and the next high-potential opportunity.
Go beyond the obvious.
Dedicate 10% of your time to explore.
What’s making you successful today is not what will make you successful tomorrow. Keep your eyes open because the next opportunity is an invisible incubator.
Challenge the mainstream.
While everyone’s attention is on the same pie, find the hidden spots most are not looking at. The pie is still baking in the oven.
Expect to be wrong before you are right
If everybody agrees with you, you are not right; you are late.
Be bold and take risks
You can get on the queue that follows a million, or you can create a new queue and be the first of the million.
Ready to make it big with the first-mover advantage?
See you at the start line!
Lemons & Lemonade 🍋
If you missed the webinar on Becoming A Substack Bestseller, you can upgrade now to watch the replay.
This is what my members said about it:
🎬 Behind the scenes:
I'm ashamed to say that I haven't set foot in (mainland) China yet...and the rest of my family has!
The fact that you picked up Mandarin and navigated that whole process is beyond impressive. I've been speaking (now yelling) it for most of my life, and getting my kids to listen and keep it in their ear until it's useful to them is a scary challenge as a parent in a bilingual and bicultural environment.
I call this concept "the first penguin"...just the thought of being one makes everything much less scary (except the polar bear part...hopped up on cocaine...)
First-mover advantage can be huge if you have a compelling brand promise. But, a fast-follower strategy can be highly effective if you have a point of superiority. Building markets is a high-risk high-reward exercise.