We all like a challenge. When you’re starting a business it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the competition. When you are a VC funded startup who happens to be dominating the scene, there can be a tendency to sit back and allow yourself to breathe for a moment. That is, until a mega brand such as Facebook joins the the game. Then the fun begins.
Foursquare, who has been dominating the location-based services arena now has some heavy competition since Facebook launched Places. As ReadWriteWeb writes, the day after Facebook launched Places, Foursquare reported record signups. However, with such steep competition, everyone is wondering: How can Foursquare even stay in the game, yet alone win?
Sounds like the typical David and Goliath, right? In Malcolm Gladwell’s “How David Beat Goliath,” Gladwell asks the question: How do underdogs beat superior opponents? Within the article, he attributes the underdog’s success to two basic principles:
- Operate in real time, much faster than the established powers; and
- Replace ability with effort — especially effort targeted at the overdogs’ weakest points.
He goes on to write, “We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around.”
So, what are some of the ways Foursquare can remain innovative and ahead of Facebook? Here are 3 ways:
- Rally the Troups: People love an underdog and will do anything to help them succeed. Foursquare should reach out to their social community to help crowdsource their innovation.
- Broaden the Partnership Eco-System: The more companies that are on board and using Foursquare in their integrated marketing campaigns, the broader the reach beyond the social chic (or geek).
- Expand Platform Engagement: The ways to engage your friends on Foursquare is currently extremely limited. By allowing people to connect with one another, make plans, and create events, Foursquare will see more and more sign-ups and active users.
What are your ideas to help this underdog win the game? Do you think they should? Do you even consider them an underdog? I would love to hear from you. Feel free to connect and tell me what you’re thinking. 
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3 Comments
If foursquare does ultimately win this battle it will be completely because of Facebook’s consistantly publicized privacy issues. Already, I’m seeing people unhappy with the fact that people can check in their friends. I don’t know if people will flock to foursquare because they don’t like FB places though. My thoughts are if they don’t like geolocation tagging in one place, they won’t like it in another.
Sarah, thanks for your post. I completely agree with you in regards to privacy. As a woman, I don’t like anyone to know where they can find me, particularly when I am alone or at night. However, there is something to be said to increasing location based engagements and getting people to grow their communities based on common likes.
At the end of the day, I don’t believe that just one company should be able to monopolize an industry and would love to see Foursquare use its social influence to innovate this arena.
Thanks for your comment.
I totally agree in regards to the privacy issue. I don’t want to have to go in and “fix” my privacy settings again and again because Facebook has a proven record of not caring about your privacy concerns. With FourSquare, I do trust them and, more importantly, I have my FourSquare settings set up to only share what I want with whom I want when I want. I don’t trust Facebook to handle that.
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