A first-mover advantage can be defined as “a firm’s ability to be better off than its competitors as a result of being first to market in a new product category”. However, a first SCALER advantage is the advantage which comes to a firm for being the first to become extremely popular and ubiquitous by scaling its services in a market category.
Note this: the greatest companies in the world are known for one main thing: great products or services. Interestingly, all great products are known by customers. That typically comes because they are well scaled. Extrapolate, you’re talking of first-scaler advantage, a leverageable compounding competitive advantage which comes with economies of scale as a result of being the first company to achieve scale in that category and improve marginal cost, offering products at highest value and best optimized cost.
If you have a first-mover advantage and fail to scale, you will lose the competitive positioning to another company which comes and scales first. So, first-mover advantage is temporary because sustainable and durable innovation-anchored monopoly requires enduring scale in product categories. If you cannot deliver that scale, forget your first-mover advantage.
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