The antagonist behind every great product
In literature, the antagonist is often misunderstood.
We often portrait the antagonist as the villain of the story, the character the protagonist must eventually defeat. But many of the most memorable novels are built around something rather different: the antagonist is not necessarily evil, often not even a person. Sometimes it is an idea. Or a belief that has become impossible to question. Or an entire way of seeing the world.
Without an antagonist, stories tend to lose their direction.
The protagonist may continue moving, but the reader gradually stops understanding why.
I have often wondered whether something similar happens to products.
Over the years, I found myself introducing the word antagonist into product discussions, almost as an experiment. Not because I was interested in creating enemies (business already invents enough of those) but because I had the growing impression that many teams were spending a big amount of time analysing competitors while neglecting what actually defined their own identity.
Competitors occupy the same market.
An antagonist defines the direction you refuse to take.
At first glance, the difference may appear semantic. In practice, I have found it changes the conversation almost immediately.
Consider a company entering a mature industrial market where the established leaders have spent decades cultivating an image of technical authority, sometimes accompanied by the unspoken suggestion that only a handful of specialists can truly understand what happens inside their products. Their expertise may be entirely genuine; over time complexity itself becomes part of the value proposition.
For a challenger, the antagonist is not necessarily that company.
It is the belief that complexity creates trust.
Once a team recognises that distinction, product decisions begin to follow different dynamics. Simplicity is no longer a matter of aesthetics. Transparency is no longer merely good communication. Making technology easier to understand becomes an expression of identity rather than a marketing exercise.
The opposite situation is equally interesting.
Imagine a company whose products have earned the confidence of customers over several decades through relentless refinement rather than dramatic reinvention. New competitors arrive promising disruption, speaking the language of revolutions and paradigm shifts, although many of their ideas remain largely unproven.
Here, the antagonist is not innovation.
It is the assumption that novelty, by itself, deserves admiration.
The consequence is that the organisation stops feeling obliged to imitate every new trend simply because the market has become fascinated by it. Innovation remains essential, but it is expected to justify its place rather than relying on its own vocabulary.
What fascinates me is that neither of these antagonists appears in a competitive analysis.
One has no logo.
The other has no market share.
Neither launches products.
Neither attends trade fairs.
And yet both are capable of influencing hundreds of decisions over many years.
Looking back, I suspect that the real value of defining an antagonist was never about competition. It was about internal alignment.
Once people agreed on what they did not want to become, many difficult decisions became unexpectedly straightforward. Features that once seemed attractive suddenly felt out of place. Marketing messages acquired a more consistent tone. Commercial priorities became easier to explain. The product gradually developed something that is surprisingly difficult to manufacture deliberately: character.
This is why I have gradually stopped asking product teams who their biggest competitors are.
Competitors matter, of course.
But I have come to believe that the more revealing question is another one entirely.
What is the idea your product exists to challenge?
Because products do not become memorable by merely being better than somebody else. They become memorable because they represent a fundamentally different answer to the same question.
