Being the First Is Overrated, Be the Best Instead

You need to be better, not bigger.

There are a lot of misconceptions around what it takes to build a successful business in the 21st century. One of them is that you need to be the first one to do something.

In the past decades, many people hit the jackpot by being early and adapting to trends.

If you’ve been one of the first people who invested in Bitcoin, you probably don’t need to worry about money now.

If you’ve been one of the first creators on Youtube and consistently produced good videos, you probably have an audience of millions by now.

If you started blogging years ago, you could easily gain tens of thousands of followers because there wasn’t much competition.

Just recently, Tiktok proved this trend: The early adopters gained up to millions of followers with relatively low efforts just because they’ve been there and produced content.

So yes, being the first certainly has advantages — more than most people like to admit.

But we often ignore that there are enough cases that prove the contrary too: If you do a good job, you can be late to the party and still thrive.

One of my favorite examples is James Jani, a Youtuber who released his first videos at the beginning of 2020, published less than 15 videos in total, and already has an audience of more than 700,000 followers.

Google was not the first search engine, by the way. Similarly, Amazon was not the first online retailer.

But they did what the first ones apparently weren’t willing to do: Overdelivering and satisfying their customers.

Being first might give you a headstart. Being the best, however, is a strategic advantage.

Being first is simpler than being the best

Rachel Pedersen is a marketing consultant and social media manager — she calls herself Queen of Social Media.

And she made a genius move: She was one of the first entrepreneurs and social media managers ever to use TikTok.

By being one of the first people to create relevant content for her target audience, she had a significant advantage compared to those who’ve been late to the TikTok party.

That’s how she gained more than 800k followers with ease.

As a smart entrepreneur, Pedersen knew she could leverage and monetize her quickly won expertise. Soon after her initial success on the platform, she launched one of the first-ever online courses about becoming TikTok famous.

When she launched her program, it was one of the few on the market. Now, you can find almost 100 courses about TikTok for a fraction of the price on Udemy.

Don’t get me wrong: Being the first one to succeed on a new platform or with a brand new idea always comes with sacrifices and risks too.

Rachel Pedersen, for example, took the risk of creating content for TikTok without knowing if it’ll be worth it.

She also created her course without knowing if there will be a demand for the product in a few months.

Her advantage, however, was that she didn’t have much competition, so she could easily dominate the landscape.

But does that mean she deserves to be the top social media manager on TikTok forever?

Hell no.

If someone else decides to hop on the platform and does a better job, she’ll be able to outperform Pedersen and many more entrepreneurs who joined earlier.

Just because you’ve been an early adopter doesn’t mean you deserve to dominate a platform forever.

In fact, being late to the party can have advantages too: You don’t need to rely on trial and error and can replicate the success of those ahead of you.

And if you want to stay on top of the game, you need to keep learning, evolving, and growing. You need to do things differently and stand out from the masses, even if you already have a huge following or business.

Just because you’ve been the first person to do something doesn’t mean you’re the best at doing it.

Better instead of bigger

A year ago, I decided to launch a Facebook Group for online writers.

I wanted to be part of a positive, helpful, and encouraging community, and as I couldn’t find such a group, I created it myself.

At that time, other similar groups already had thousands of members and were growing quickly.

I could’ve compared my group to theirs, get discouraged, and give up.

Instead, I asked myself how I could create a group that was better, even if it was smaller.

I realized that none of the other group founders were interacting with the members on a personal level, so I did the contrary:

• I replied to every post and comment inside my group for several months
• I hosted several live sessions per month to build trust and deliver value
• I created multiple daily postings that were helpful to my audience
• I made sure every member knows she’s a crucial and relevant part of the community and feels welcome

Guess what happened within just a few months? We surpassed most other groups in our niche by being better.

Final thoughts

Just because you’ve been the first one to create a particular product or serve a specific audience doesn’t mean you deserve to be in the spotlight forever.

While being a first-mover and acting quickly can indeed come with many advantages, you can easily lose these perks if you don’t keep improving your products, services, and yourself.

You can’t be mad at someone who’s doing a better job just because you’re too lazy to keep growing.

Next time you’re wondering whether a project is worth starting because there are already other people doing it, remind yourself that you need to be better, not bigger.

Being first is nice, but being the best is the real deal.

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