What’s More Important: Being First or Being Right?

The iPad was not the first tablet PC, Facebook was not the first social network, Google was not the first search engine, Foursquare was not the first place-based app, Tesla was not the first Electric Car, Walmart was not the first megastore retailer and even popular memes like Seth Godin’s Ideavirus and Chris Andersen’s FREE were actually concepts originated from Dawkin’s 1976 The Selfish Gene and from Kevin Kelly’s New Rules respectively. The list goes on and on…and even in the case of Twitter; as those of you with tech street cred already know, microblogging Tumblogs existed long before it!

So why rush to be first? Why the need to attract the early adopters when the real measure of success is on the other side of the Tipping point? Maybe the recent phenomena of the iPhone4 outselling the original iPhone by a factor of ten can illustrate this point: See, if there were no expectations set by the original smartphone innovator, the desire for the latter would be nonexistent? Right? Well, then the question is, was Apple really the first in the smartphone category? Old-school PDA and Blackberry owners already know the answer!

First is overrated:Maybe being the “first” that everyone rushes towards is just a matter of perception. In other words, it just seems like the first, because the seemingly first may have reinvented the rules of the game with better design, marketing and/or business model innovation at the right time with the right conditions. The keywords here are “reinvent” and “right”. What that really means that the category was already “invented”, but there was not enough understanding and/or “right readiness” for it to hit. The “reinvention” and “rightness” are really based on the understanding of what’s missing that helps secure the apparent new thing into a power position.

Really, the race to being “first” is not really about being first at all, but rather, it’s about being the first to be right! So how do we get to “right-ready”? For all of us trying to introduce better ways of doing things in the world, here are some things to consider:

Right is about Feeling:The first question to ask if you want to get it right is why. Why should anyone care about what you are offering? What do you believe you are trying to do that also resonates with what they are feeling? If you can’t tap into the collective feeling that answers the why, then it’s already game over.

Right is about Timing:You may be ready to scratch your itch because you want to make your world better, but is the world ready for your change? Have you considered the real gap of expectation vs. experience or are you just ready to push your agenda? Whose need are you really satisfying?

Right is about Rules:No, not the ones already established by those before you, but the new ones you set. All of the examples I’ve mentioned before operate under new conditions they’ve created for themselves. They don’t try to be a better version of the accepted norm; they reinvent the new norm based on the feeling, timing and passion they both have for their brand and what people are missing most from the status quo offerings. Those are their rules, what about yours?

Are you ready to be the first to be right?