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Many of you might not know that I have an MBA in Marketing & International Management (but it only really matters when you’re working for someone else). One of the foundational concepts in Marketing is the idea of the First-mover Advantage (FMA) – this concept basically states that a business can gain a significant advantage when trying to sell stuff if they’re the first to market. To put it into an easily understood idiom, “The Early Bird Gets the Worm”.
This idea makes sense and you can see it all around – in school, sports & life. A common saying in fighting is “get off first” meaning you should be the first to strike in a fight. The idea being that if you initiate the attack then you will somehow get the upper hand. Willie Parks paid homage to this belief recently when, after winning his fight at the Jackson’s Series fights at the Hard Rock, he said that his game plan was to “come out fast, get off first, and dominate his opponent”. And that’s exactly what he did.
However, a recent study from the University of Utah refutes this long-standing belief in the FMA. They talk about the First-mover Disadvantage and how going to market first can oftentimes be the reason a company fails. There are many examples of companies who were first to market but, since they weren’t the best, they failed (think MySpace vs. Facebook). Sometimes the company that starts later in the game has the advantage of being able to learn from the first guy’s mistakes, not make them, and make a better company without wasting all the money and time.
KNUXX is struggling with this right now. We are the first fight publication in the world that is trying to do what we’re doing (as far as I can tell). We are the first, and only, local fight paper that focuses on local gyms, fighters, and events and we’re working to build an entire network of papers all under the KNUXX brand. There will soon be a KNUXX of Northern Colorado, a KNUXX of Western Texas and other KNUXX papers (let us know if you’re interested in starting a paper in your market). We’re the first and we HAVE TO BE THE BEST if our plan is to succeed.
Thankfully, sometimes being first means you are the best. Holly Holm (our cover fighter this month) wants to be the first female fighter to hold titles in multiple disciplines – Boxing and MMA. Being first in that category definitely would leave no question about whether she is the best. The female MMA fighters we profile in this issue are still walking on the trail that was started by great people like Arlene Sanchez-Vaughn and others before her. They aren’t the first female fighters but they are definitely some of the best right now! Please enjoy this look at some of the toughest fighters around who happen to be women.
