Nancy K. Napier is a blog contributor to Psychology Today! She will post in her ‘Creativity Without Borders’ blog approximately once every two weeks.

Make sure to so you don’t miss out!

Here’s a peek of her latest blog post:

How does a small, unknown software start up find a creative way to compete against “Goliath”  competitors? In the 1990s, one small firm faced dual challenges: entering a newly emerging market (on-line  analytics) and finding its own market niche. Potential customers had little idea of what  “on-line analytics” could do, let alone how to choose among competing firms. So the obvious decision, if they bought the new product, was to go with a well known firm, like Microsoft, that could offer reliable products, as well as training and support.

That was the dilemma facing ProClarity, a member of The Gang – high performing, highly creative organizations from very different fields (from software to football, theater to law enforcement). Its resources (people, money, time) were nothing compared to established giants. By throwing millions of dollars into development and marketing any product, Microsoft consistently squashed small firms trying to establish themselves in the new market space. Microsoft could offer thousands of potential customers a chance to try out a product for free; those users were then likely to ask their corporate purchasers to buy this product rather than another they’d not tried out. Or, Microsoft could send its worldwide marketing staff directly to corporate buyers. In contrast, ProClarity CEO Bob Lokken felt that, in some ways, he was the marketing “staff,” visiting potential and current customers. But as one person, he couldn’t compete with Microsoft’s might, as well as many other competitors. So he found a way to turn the disadvantage of being a smaller, “resource-less” firm into an untapped advantage.

Read the entire article here