Page 99 - The Magic of Tiny Business

Part III  Practice Your “How”

You don’t want to be the only brand in a category—
not in the long run. Early brands have to first identify a
market and open it up. But once they do, there is room for
other brands. I’ve always thought the more the merrier.
We were the first in our category, and it was not only a lit-
tle lonely but challenging to find buyers willing to open
shelf space for us. Not only was there no track record on
our brand, there was no track record for our product
category.

If there’s only one brand of something on a shelf or in
a search, there’s nothing to compare. And, ultimately, cus-
tomers want options, to be able to choose which brand
they want. It’s a losing proposition to try to own a whole
category. The better focus for your time and energy is to go
deep on the value you bring. What better way to bring
attention to that value than by collaborating with other
like-minded brands?

Co-opetition

Onyeka Obiocha, now director of innovation at Yale Uni-
versity’s Center for Public Service and Social Justice,
coined the term “co-opetition,” a combination of coopera-
tion and competition. It’s how to leverage partnerships to
promote growth, he explains. This is what we were doing
over fifteen years ago before it had a name!

Working with ChicoBag, a similar brand with the
same mission, co-opetition was an easy decision. Chico-
Bag’s bag style was very different than ours, and they were
manufacturing in China. We were already fifteen years

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