Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Gerry Langeler
I’m in the middle of a book that is fascinating, and troubling. It is One Second After by William Forstchen. The plot centers on an attack on the United States using just three EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) nuclear weapons exploded in space over the country. There is no blast. There is no fallout. But the EMP essentially fries all the electronics in the country and takes society back to pre-industrial revolution times in a matter of seconds. Speaking as someone who once sold electronic design automation (EDA) systems to the military for “rad-hard” applications, this is not science fiction.
An underlying theme of the novel is the power of asymmetric warfare. Not only do you want to hit an enemy where they are weak (of course), but hit them in a way where their ability to respond is circumvented.
In many ways, start-ups by their nature are asymmetric competitors. They are more nimble, more innovative, and have essentially nothing to lose. The big, slow moving companies they attack have everything to lose. However, if those small start-ups attack on a set of terms that are well understood by the big firms, then the big firms have the advantage. You might introduce a product that is better, faster, or cheaper than your competition. But if that’s all it is, they can respond by cutting price (temporarily – until you die), promising futures of better or faster (temporarily – until you die), or hiding their price using some bundling technique. (Don’t try this if you have 80% market share).
But, if you truly hit your competitors with asymmetric attacks, there is very little they can do. What were the big box specialty stores going to do about Amazon? Ultimately, they all opened their own web sites, but those sites were still just for their specialty, and didn’t have the sophisticated analytic elements Amazon built in as a fundamental advantage. Most of those stores and companies are gone now.
OVP has a portfolio company currently in registration for a public offering – Complete Genomics. Because they are in the quiet period, we can’t say much about them. But it is public knowledge that their business model – selling the complete sequencing of human genomes as a service for just thousands of dollars each – is an asymmetric attack on the large firms selling machines for upwards of a million dollars each to do a similar function. Those firms have no straightforward way to defend against this small, nimble player who is playing by different rules.
In One Second After, the author quotes Sun Tzu (who wrote The Art of War) saying, “Your enemy will never attack your strength, only your weakness. So, know your weakness.” Asymmetric warfare is simply a way to exaggerate your competitor’s weaknesses.
It’s a lesson both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies should take to heart.
