Incumbents win through coordination and leverage. Startups win through focus and speed. The strategy is not symmetric — it is adversarial. To win, startups must invert the incumbent’s playbook and exploit the structural gaps.
The vulnerability: Incumbent consolidation takes 18–24 months. During this period, they are disrupted but not yet coordinated.
This is the most predictable structural weakness in the entire industry.
The counter-strategy: Move faster than the consolidation timeline. Establish a defensible position before alignment completes.
0–6 months: Ship relentlessly
6–12 months: Achieve depth in a single domain
12–18 months: Cement user lock-in
18+ months: The window closes
Examples: Anthropic (coding), Perplexity (search), Midjourney (creative). These companies won by outpacing the reorganization cycle.
2. Founder Intensity Advantage
The vulnerability: When founders return to large companies, their intensity is routed through bureaucracy. Energy becomes diluted across processes, committees, cross-functional dependencies.
The counter-strategy: Out-execute with direct founder energy. Vision → product with zero friction.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
