You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.
Interpretation
Study your competitors to improve, but maintain your originality to survive in the market.
This quote emphasizes the importance of learning from your competitors in order to grow and enhance your own strategies, but it warns against the danger of imitation. Copying others not only stifles your own creativity and innovation but can also lead to a lack of identity in a competitive landscape, ultimately threatening your success and sustainability.
In practice
A business seminar focusing on developing unique strategies rather than following market trends.
Hong Kong people say Hong Kong needs to preserve its uniqueness. I say Hong Kong's uniqueness is in its diversity, its tolerance of difference cultures... China does not want to see Hong Kong in decline. I have full confidence in its future.
If we are a good team and know what we want to do, one of us can defeat tons of them.
It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys. It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.
Helping doing business easier, we choose the name Alibaba because it is a global company. It is founded in China, but it was created for the world.
In the beginning I just wanted to survive. For the first three years, we made zero revenue. I remember many times when I was trying to pay up, the restaurant owner would say, 'Your bill was paid.' And there would be a note saying, 'Mr. Ma, I'm your customer on the Alibaba platform. I made a lot of money, and I know you don't, so I paid the bill.'
Even if your competitor is still small in size or weak, you should take him seriously and treat him as a giant. Likewise, even if your competitor is massive in size, you shouldn't regard yourself as a weakling.
A good idea for a new business tends not to occur in isolation, and often the window of opportunity is very small. So speed is of the essence.
An important priority for me is a business must get their own house in order. Be or become an agent of positive change in your own enterprise and adopt responsible practices to eliminate the risks that often lie at the root of inequality and poverty.
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
I'd rather Apple cannibalize Apple than somebody else cannibalize Apple.
Most marketers think there's a concept called a product life cycle. Once you realize that the world is organized by jobs that need to be done, you understand that product life cycles don't exist.
As an entrepreneur, I've learned how crucial it is to be able to call a spade a spade and avoid falling in love with a particular strategy or product. Instead, you need to let the customer tell you what she needs - and to change her as she changes.
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