指尖阅读 — 我的生涯我做主（二十四）

All Advantages Are Local: Pick a Hill That Has Less Competition

The most obvious way to improve your competitive advantage is to strengthen and diversify your asset mix - forexample, learn new skills. That's certainly smart. But it's equally effect into place yourself in a market niche where your existing assets shine brighter than the competition's. For example, top American college basketball players who aren't good enough to play professionally State side frequently play in European leagues. Instead of changing their skills, they change their local environment. They know they have a competitive advantage in a market with lower-quality competition.

Especially in the start-up world,competition - or lack thereof - makes a big difference. LinkedIn, from the outset, struck a different path from its competitions. In 2003, when LinkedIn started, its competitors were largely enterprise focused. Enterprise networks tied a person's profile and identity to a specific company and employer. Instead, LinkedIn placed the individual professional at the center of the system. LinkedIn's founding belief was that all individuals should own and manage their identities. They should be able to connect with people from other companies to work more effectively in their current jobs and find strong opportunities when they change jobs. LinkedIn had the right philosophy. The large social networks like Friendster, MySpace, and now Facebook have massive popularity, but none truly serves the needs of professionals. LinkedIn continuesto invest in features that appeal to professionals and skips features like photo sharing or games that don't contribute to its competitive advantage.LinkedIn competes in the event where it can win the gold medal; it leads the space it has defined.

You can carve out a similar professional niche in the job market by making choices that make you different from the smart elope around you. Matt Cohler, now a partner t Benchmark Capital, spent six years in his late twenties and early thirties being alieutenant to CEOs at LinkedIn (me) and Facebook( Mark Zckerberg). Most super talented people want to be the front man; few play the sonsigliere role well. In other words, there's less competition and significant opportunity to be an all-star right-hand man. Matt excelled at this role, building a portfolio of accomplishments and relationships along the way. This professional differentiationin the market set him up to achieve a long-standing goal, which was to become a partner at a top-tier VC firm.

The three puzzle pieces become actionable when part of a good plan. In the next chapter we'll explore themes of planning, adapting, and doing.