Escaping Competition via (Personal) Branding

If Joe Rogan vanishes tomorrow, no one can take his spot in the Joe Rogan Experience (which isn’t the case with many other popular podcasts).

His personal brand is so deeply intertwined in his podcast that he’s become irreplaceable.

Naval shared the above perspective on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which I re-listened to the other day (so good, linked below).

It got me thinking about how one can make either themselves or their company’s brand so unique that the term “competitor” doesn’t apply anymore.

For example, DHH and Jason – the founders of Basecamp – are vocal about countering the toxic always-on work culture and have strongly embedded their personal philosophy into the product.

So even though there are many project management tools out there, if Basecamp shuts down, customers like me would be in limbo.