When I started thinking about turning what I know into products, my first filter was simple. Will this help my competitors?
If yes, shelve it.
That filter caught real things. It also caught things it shouldn’t have. And it let me off the hook on things I didn’t want to do anyway.
Two variables, not one
What does my clinic group actually compete for? Patients in our catchments. Therapists from a small local pool. Referring doctors. Space in specific buildings.
Every one of those is fenced by geography and profession. A physio in Manchester competes with me for none of it. A dentist in Singapore competes with me for none of it.
So “does this arm my competitors” isn’t a question about the topic alone. It’s topic times buyer. Who reads it matters as much as what it says.
Where the filter was right
Hiring, contracts, how I structure pay, how I let people go. While I’m still building and competing for a small pool of therapists, handing a local competitor that playbook hands them a tool aimed at the one thing I compete hardest for.
Held. That’s not fear. That’s correct.
Where it was backwards
Pricing. If every clinic reads how I raised prices and raises theirs, that helps me. The competitor who charges more isn’t the threat. The one who stays cheap is.
Price leadership works by being copied.
Where it was cover
Then the honest part. My instinct was to defer a lot of it until “after I sell.” That wasn’t a date. It was a condition that might never come.
A gate with no date is a shelf.
When I looked closer, the real reason wasn’t competition. A new product line was the least proven thing on my plate during my busiest stretch. That’s a perfectly good reason to wait. It just needed to be said as itself, with an event attached, instead of dressed up as strategy.
Two questions I ask now:
- Who exactly would read or buy this, and do they compete with me for anything?
- If I’m deferring, until what? A date or an event. Not “someday.”