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222 ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGIES

Meanwhile, the Hattori Company in Japan had long been making
conventional watches for the Japanese market. It saw the opportunity
and went in for creative imitation, developing the quartz-powered
digital watch as the standard timepiece. By the time the Swiss had
woken up, it was too late. Seiko watches had become the world’s
bestsellers, with the Swiss almost pushed out of the market.
Like being “Fustest with the Mostest,” creative imitation is a
strategy aimed at market or industry leadership, if not at market or
industry dominance. But it is much less risky. By the time the cre-
ative imitator moves, the market has been established and the new
venture has been accepted. Indeed, there is usually more demand
for it than the original innovator can easily supply. The market
segmentations are known or at least knowable. By then, too, mar-
ket research can find out what customers buy, how they buy, what
constitutes value for them, and so on. Most of the uncertainties
that abound when the first innovator appears have been dispelled
or can at least be analyzed and studied. No one has to explain any
more what a personal computer or a digital watch are and what
they can do.
Of course, the original innovator may do it right the first time, thus
closing the door to creative imitation. There is the risk of an innova-
tor bringing out and doing the right job with vitamins as Hoffmann-
LaRoche did, or with Nylon as did DuPont, or as Wang did with the
word processor. But the number of entrepreneurs engaging in creative
imitation, and their substantial success, indicates that perhaps the risk
of the first innovator’s preempting the market by getting it right is not
an overwhelming one.
Another good example of creative imitation is Tylenol, the “non-
aspirin aspirin.” This case shows more clearly than any other I know what
the strategy consists of, what its requirements are, and how it works.
Acetaminophen (the substance that is sold under the Tylenol
brand name in the U.S.) had been used for many years as a
painkiller, but until recently it was available in the United States
only by prescription. Until recently also, aspirin, the much older
pain-killing substance, was considered perfectly safe and had the
pain-relief market to itself. Acetaminophen is a less potent drug
than aspirin. It is effective as a painkiller but has no anti-inflam-
matory effect and also no effect on blood coagulation. Because of
this it is free from the side effects, especially gastric upsets and
stomach bleeding, which aspirin can cause, particularly if used in