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Entrepreneurship & Startups vocabulary · Ideas & Business Models

First-mover advantage

Meaning in entrepreneurship & startups, with examples

nounCommon term

In entrepreneurship & startups, first-mover advantage means: The benefit a company may get from being the first to enter a new market, such as brand recognition, early customers and control of key resources.

In Turkish: ilk hamle avantajı, pazara ilk giren olmanın avantajı, öncü olma avantajı

How it is used

Common in pitches and strategy talk, but investors are often sceptical: many winners were not first, and later companies learn from the first mover's mistakes. The opposite idea is a second-mover or fast-follower advantage.

Example sentences

  1. We have a first-mover advantage in Turkey, but global players could arrive within a year.

  2. First-mover advantage alone is not a moat; you also need customers who stay.

Common collocations

  • gain a first-mover advantage
  • enjoy a first-mover advantage
  • fast follower
  • first mover
  • competitive advantageSomething that lets a company serve customers better or more cheaply than its rivals, such as unique technology, data, a strong brand or lower costs.
  • moatA long-lasting advantage that protects a business from competitors, like the water-filled ditch around a castle; for example network effects, patents or high switching costs.
  • disruptTo change an industry completely with a new product or business model, often by serving customers more cheaply or simply, so that established companies lose their position.
  • network effectA situation in which a product becomes more valuable to each user as more people use it, as with social networks, payment systems and marketplaces.

More terms: Ideas & Business Models

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