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Co-opting

A strategy of adopting or mimicking a competitor's features, standards, or messaging to neutralize their advantage and attract their users.

"Copying competitors move and undermining any ecosystem advantage by interrupting data flows."

  • Simon Wardley

🤔 Explanation​

What is Co-opting?​

Co-opting is a competitive strategy where a company incorporates elements of a rival's product, technology, or marketing into its own offerings. The goal is to neutralize the competitor's unique advantage, reduce their differentiation, and make your own product more appealing to their user base. It's a form of strategic imitation, aimed at leveling the playing field and shifting the basis of competition to areas where you are stronger, such as scale, distribution, or price.

Why use Co-opting?​

Companies use this strategy to:

  • Neutralize a Threat: Quickly counter a competitor's popular feature that is attracting users away from your product.
  • Reduce Differentiation: Make the competitor's offering seem less unique, forcing them to compete on factors other than their key innovation.
  • Attract New Users: Appeal to users of the competing product by offering the features they are used to, but within your own ecosystem.
  • Accelerate Development: Imitating a proven feature is often faster and less risky than innovating a new one from scratch.

🗺️ Real-World Examples​

Instagram vs. Snapchat (The "Stories" Feature)​

In 2016, Instagram launched "Stories," a feature that was a direct and unabashed copy of Snapchat's core functionality. At the time, Snapchat was growing rapidly and seen as a major threat to Instagram's dominance in social photo sharing. By co-opting the Stories format, Instagram completely neutralized Snapchat's key differentiator. Users no longer needed to leave the Instagram app for that functionality, which dramatically slowed Snapchat's growth and cemented Instagram's market leadership.

Microsoft's Embrace of Linux​

For years, Microsoft viewed the open-source Linux operating system as a major competitor, with former CEO Steve Ballmer famously calling it "a cancer." However, in the 2010s, Microsoft began to co-opt the open-source movement. They built the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), allowing developers to run Linux tools directly on Windows, became a top contributor to open-source projects, and acquired GitHub. This move co-opted the energy of the open-source community, neutralized a long-standing threat, and made Windows a much more attractive platform for developers.

🚦 When to Use / When to Avoid​

🚦 Co-opting Strategy Self-Assessment Tool

Find out the strategic fit and organisational readiness by marking each statement as Yes/Maybe/No based on your context. Strategy Assessment Guide.

Landscape and Climate

How well does the strategy fit your context?

  • A competitor has a single, highly popular feature that is driving their growth.
  • Your map shows that a rival's point of differentiation is a feature, not a fundamental platform advantage.
  • Customers are switching to a competitor for a specific piece of functionality that you lack.
  • A new trend or technology is emerging, and a competitor is the current leader.

Organisational Readiness (Doctrine)

How capable is your organisation to execute the strategy?

  • We have the engineering agility to quickly replicate a competitor's feature.
  • Our product has a large enough user base to make our version of the feature instantly viable.
  • We can integrate the co-opted feature into our existing product in a way that provides unique value.
  • Our brand is strong enough to withstand potential accusations of being a "copycat."

Assessment and Recommendation

Strategic Fit: Weak. Ability to Execute: Weak.

RECOMMENDATION
Consider alternative strategies or address significant gaps before proceeding.

LowHighStrategic FitHighLowAbility to Execute

Use when​

  • A competitor's advantage is based on a replicable feature.
  • You have a larger user base or superior distribution channels.
  • The goal is to slow a fast-moving competitor and force them to compete on your terms.

Avoid when​

  • The competitor's advantage is protected by strong patents or other intellectual property.
  • Your brand is built on originality and innovation, and being seen as a copycat would cause significant damage.
  • You cannot create a high-quality, well-integrated version of the feature, resulting in a poor user experience.

🎯 Leadership​

Core challenge​

The core leadership challenge is deciding when to innovate and when to imitate. Building a culture that is good at co-opting (i.e., being a "fast follower") can sometimes come at the expense of developing breakthrough innovations. Leaders must strike a balance, using co-opting as a targeted, defensive tool without letting it become the default strategy and stifle the organization's creative spirit.

Key leadership skills required​

  • Market Awareness: A keen sense of the competitive landscape and the ability to quickly identify emerging threats and opportunities.
  • Decisiveness and Agility: The ability to make a quick decision to copy a feature and to mobilize the organization to execute it rapidly.
  • Brand Management: The skill to manage the narrative around the co-opted feature to minimize reputational damage.

Ethical considerations​

Co-opting is ethically grey. While not illegal (unless it infringes on patents), it can be seen as parasitic and unfair to the original innovator. It can discourage startups from innovating, for fear that a large incumbent will simply copy their idea if it's successful. Leaders must consider the impact of their actions on the health of the broader innovation ecosystem.

📋 How to Execute​

  1. Identify the Target: Pinpoint the specific competitor feature or strategy that is giving them a competitive advantage.
  2. Analyze and Deconstruct: Understand why the feature is successful. What user need does it solve? How does it work?
  3. Replicate and Integrate: Build your own version of the feature. Crucially, don't just create a standalone copy; integrate it deeply into your existing product to provide unique value (e.g., Instagram Stories was integrated with the main Instagram feed and user graph).
  4. Launch and Promote: Use your existing market power, user base, and marketing channels to launch your version of the feature and drive rapid adoption.
  5. Observe and Iterate: Monitor the competitor's response and the market's reaction, and be prepared to iterate on your feature to maintain parity or superiority.

📈 Measuring Success​

  • Competitor Growth Rate: Has the growth of the targeted competitor slowed since you launched your feature?
  • Feature Adoption: What is the adoption and engagement rate of your version of the feature?
  • User Churn: Has your user churn rate decreased, particularly among segments that were at risk of switching to the competitor?

⚠️ Common Pitfalls and Warning Signs​

Clumsy Imitation​

A poorly executed, buggy, or incomplete copy of a feature can backfire, making your product look inferior and damaging your brand.

Lack of Integration​

Simply bolting on a copied feature without integrating it into the core user experience will likely result in low adoption.

Brand Dilution​

If your company gains a reputation for being a copycat, it can become difficult to attract innovative talent or be seen as a market leader.

Ignoring the "Why"​

Copying the "what" (the feature) without understanding the "why" (the user need it solves) can lead to a soulless imitation that fails to resonate with users.

🧠 Strategic Insights​

Imitation as a Valid Strategy​

Co-opting is a powerful reminder that successful business strategy is not always about being first or being the most innovative. Sometimes, being a fast and effective imitator is the winning move.

Neutralizing the Point of Attack​

This strategy is often used to neutralize a competitor's main weapon. By removing their key point of differentiation, you force the competition to shift to a different battleground, one where you have the advantage.

❓ Key Questions to Ask​

  • The Core Advantage: Is our competitor's advantage based on a single feature we can copy, or something more fundamental?
  • The Better Version: How can we make our version of this feature better by integrating it with our existing strengths?
  • The Brand Risk: What is the potential damage to our brand, and how can we mitigate it?
  • The Long Game: Is this a one-time defensive move, or are we becoming a company that primarily imitates rather than innovates?

🔀 Related Strategies​

  • Embrace and Extend: A more formal and aggressive version of co-opting that is focused on taking control of an entire standard.

  • Fast Follower: A company that has a deliberate strategy of being a fast follower will be skilled at co-opting.

  • Harvesting: Similar in that it involves adopting an idea from the outside, but harvesting is typically aimed at the innovations of partners within your own ecosystem, whereas co-opting is aimed at external competitors.

  • Threat Acquisition - acquiring or partnering with rivals to absorb their capabilities and neutralise external threats.

  • Center of Gravity - targeting key nodes or influencers in competitor ecosystems to realign the industry’s power centre.

  • restriction-of-movement - drawing critical partners into your ecosystem to constrain competitors’ strategic mobility.

  • fragmentation - fracturing competitor networks by pulling participants into competing coalitions.

⛅ Relevant Climatic Patterns​

📚 Further Reading & References​

Author

Dave Hulbert
Dave Hulbert
Builder and maintainer of Wardley Leadership Strategies