The Law of Leadership

While I wish Damond Philpott and Bryant Richards luck with their new classified ads site, Go Fish Ads, the chances of them breaking e-moo’s stranglehold on the market seem slim.

I’m no marketing expert, but I’ve read a book written by two men who are: Al Ries and Jack Trout’s excellent “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing”. You don’t need to go much beyond the first of their laws to understand why every pretender to e-moo's throne has failed.

The Law of Leadership states that it’s better to be first than it is to be better. To illustrate their point, Ries and Trout note that most people know who was first to fly across the Atlantic, but not who was second. While there are exceptions to this rule (Google was not the first internet search site), community-oriented products such as classifieds sites are going to struggle to break free from it.

If I want to sell something, the more potential buyers I can reach, the better. If I want to buy something, I'm likely to get a better deal by looking where there are a large number of sellers. Thus it’s in my interest to use the most popular site. This creates a huge barrier to entry for new enterprises trying to grab a slice of the same market. That’s a barrier that’s not present when it comes to switching the search engine or brand of detergent that I use.

Go Fish may look better than the ugly e-moo, but so does Bermuda adz, and that didn’t help them. Go Fish may be easier to navigate than e-moo, which frustrates by not providing an easy way to see your listings except when you first log in. Its search function may be better too. But none of this is likely to matter. The buyers and the sellers are still over at e-moo and their mutual gravitational attraction will probably keep them there.

While Mr. Philpott’s attempt to muscle in on e-moo may be doomed by the first immutable law of marketing, the second offers him an alternative strategy. The Law of Category advises that if you can’t be the first product in a category, set up a new category that you can be first in. People remember Amelia Earhart not because she was the third person to fly across the Atlantic, but because she was the first woman to do so.

Mr. Philpott hinted that he intends to extend Go Fish to personal ads and jobs. I’m not aware of any website that offers personal ads right now (correct me if I’m wrong), and the online job ads market is undeveloped. BermudaJobs hasn’t grabbed the popular imagination like e-moo has, possibly because they started by charging employers hefty fees to post vacancies.

Perhaps Mr. Philpott would do better to focus Go Fish on these areas, and leave the classifieds to e-moo.

Comments

[ace on 03.07.06 at 21:30]

I may check it out. For some reason everytime I click on an item that is e-mailed to me in the "new ads" e-mails that e-moo sends out it takes me to a completely different ad. I've checked with a number of other people and they don't seem to have the same problem. Now I just delete any e-moo e-mails I get.

I "could" e-mail their support people I guess, but I don't want to waste my time with that. Besides, my wife is the e-moo master.

[The Right Reverend Uncle Elvis on 03.07.06 at 21:58]

I'm impressed, Phil! That's one of my most important books... or it was when I was in the biz.

I am continually telling people that come to me to ask my thoughts on their big, new, moneymaking idea, "Has it been done before?"
The answer, invariably, is, "Yeah, but we're gonna be better"

That's great. But it's not gonna work.
In my experience with this, not one of the "Big, new ideas" has worked. Not a single one.
Why? Because e-moo has done it. Bermuda.com has done it, Bermynet has done it. It's been done.
We're an INSANELY limited market here. If it's not unique and original, it's not gonna work.

"It's better to be first than it is to be better."

[Rev. Goat on 03.07.06 at 22:28]

"I’m not aware of any website that offers personal ads right now (correct me if I’m wrong)"

Although not a Bermuda based site there are over 4000 Bermudians registered on the adultfriendfinder.com site. There was a story on it in the RG some time ago.

[novote on 04.07.06 at 00:08]

I'm sure that will be just as successful as the curry house that decided to open right next door to the House of India.

Some people are so dopey!!!

[Intrigued on 04.07.06 at 08:32]

Microsoft, arguably one of the most successful software companies in the world, has never been first in any space. Not with DOS, Windows, Xbox, Internet Explorer ... and I could go on. In every instance they eventually won the market by doing a better job. I could go on, Oracle, SAP, Macromedia, eBay.

The first immutable law may work for bricks and mortar companies but not necessarily tech based businesses.

[Paradise Found on 04.07.06 at 09:33]

Phil

I agree - emoo has the strangelhold on the market, and as someone mentioned over at Bravo Zulu, GoFishAds seems to have emoo and bermudaadz as meta tags. It's also a web 1.0 site - table driven tag soup - you would have thought that they would have used web 2.0 CSS and AJAX/JSON - that might at least have given them some sort of edge.

[The Right Reverend Uncle Elvis on 04.07.06 at 13:23]

Intrigued,

I agree with you, but Microsoft's model is also covered by the Laws, just, maybe, not this one.

However, you COULD look at it like this:

Microsoft was the first to make their stuff an integral part of life on the computer. They did MAJOR marketing and tied everything together so tightly (Yes, at the expense of bugs and security! *grin*), and did whatever they did to become THE platform.
There's another law saying something along the lines of "Be number one or number two... there is no number three" and gives the example of the cola companies. What is the number three cola in the world?
Tough one, no? It's Royal Crown (RC) Cola.
Now, it's a little different in the tech world, as you say, as Linux is relatively well known, but you gotta admit number three is WAY behind one and two.

Microsoft may not fit this to a tee, but it is covered by the Laws.
Check out the book. It's amazing!

[SmokingGun on 05.07.06 at 12:33]

Doesn't hurt to have a memorable name like "e-moo".

[Mr. Moo on 05.07.06 at 20:49]

Dear Mr. Limey,

We know we should make e-moo prettier, we also want to change the look and feel gently over-time. The next version will be prettier than the last, and so on...

As you rightly stated e-moo is used by a lot of people, who have figured out the features. And we want to move the stuff around carefully.

We recently moved the feature that shows your own ads, originally it was a checkbox
[x] Show my Ads only.

Now it is part of the dropdown box "Show" and you can drop down the box and select "My Ads Only."

Sorry about that. :<

Now onto Mr. Ace's problem. I am not sure why you would get a different ad, because there are two parts to the document id (id=) and the verification code (vy=). The verification code is an mathematical formula of the id, to ensure that the id was valid.

So if you have tried this with the new sectionalized ads, it should take you to the right spot.

The Ads are release at the same time, so you might get an unavailable message if you click on it within a few minutes of the email being posted. We do this so everyone has an equal stab at the new ads.

If you try the link...

http://beta.e-moo.com/DotMoo.aspx?job=godoc&id=140250&vy=dsxcz

This link will take you to ad 140250, and the ad number is on the page.

While we are the number one website in classifieds we don't want to take our popularity for granted and will be offering new products and features in the up coming months.

I know either Miss Moo, or myself the Webmooster look forward to any comments on how to make the site better for the public's use.

We can be reached at info@e-moo.com.

Mr. Moo.

[Roger on 06.07.06 at 12:15]

Since Bombay Palace opened I have never been back to HOI.

I have many great HOI memories but BP just feels newer, cleaner and the staff even remember your favourites and your friends.

[JJ on 06.07.06 at 12:52]

I agree with Roger. When it comes to restaurants you will go to the better one, not the first one. The "first" one may maintain some loyalty but most people will go the one they consider better.

[ace on 06.07.06 at 13:53]

I may have been unclear in my previous post. When I click a link in the e-mails I receive to a particular ad it opens a browser window in my lotus notes. On the tab it shows Bermuda Classified Site RC1 and the page displayed is the section that the item relates to...not the specific product that is shown on the e-mail.

I've shown this to many people in the office who use Lotus Notes as well and they don't have the same problem.

I really cannot afford the time to try and resolve this as I can view the ads on my wife's machine at home.

[Roger on 07.07.06 at 09:45]

Happy days!

I don't think anybody has ever agreed with me before!