How Google stole OpenAI's spotlight

Launching your product or service on the same day as a big competitor is a smart way to get attention.

This strategy steals the spotlight from the other company’s marketing and gives you a lot of free PR.

The Art of the Counter-Launch

When you launch alongside a competitor, you force people to look at both of you at the same time.

It’s about taking control of the news cycle.

Instead of letting a competitor dominate, you make it a competition to grab eyeballs.

It is the fastest way to get a lot of attention.

Google’s AI Blitz Against OpenAI

Consider the recent battle between Google and OpenAI.

OpenAI launched Canvas during Day 4 of their 12 Days of XMas.

Google then unveiled Gemini 2.0 Flash the same day, creating a direct counter.

Google did not stop there. They launched Veo and ImageFX today.

Veo is a text-to-video model similar to OpenAI’s Sora, while ImageFX is their text-to-image tool competing with DALL·E.

Even though Veo was only available on a waitlist, the buzz overshadowed OpenAI's search launch which was actually live.

This shows how the timing of announcements can change the focus of attention.

IndieHackers vs. YCombinator: The Demo Day Diversion

This strategy isn't exclusive to big tech companies. Independent developers do it too.

For example, indie hackers have leveraged Y Combinator’s Demo Day.

David from OneupApp launched his own Demo Day for self-funded founders during the same time.

He did this for many years.

Similarly, Daniel Vassallo uses a similar tactic before a YC batch launches, gaining attention with a long-form tweet.

Vassallo uses the exact same tweet and just changes the opening. It garners lots of eyeballs.

Barbenheimer: The Unintentional Collab

Sometimes, these situations aren’t planned.

Take the simultaneous release of the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies.

Barbie had a huge marketing campaign. Oppenheimer relied on director Christopher Nolan's name.

The two movies came out on the same day, sparking a cultural phenomenon.

The "beef" between Barbie and Oppenheimer helped both movies.

Without the beef, who knows which film would've tanked and made less money but because of the beef, both had an incredible run at the box office.

They created a massive event termed Barbenheimer that brought in big money.

Barbie grossed $1.4 billion, while Oppenheimer grossed $953 million.

This demonstrates how a counter narrative beef marketing can be beneficial to both sides.

Ultimately, strategically launching alongside competitors guarantees attention and boosts your product's visibility.

It lets you ride the wave of a competitor's hype, overrides competitors' planned marketing momentum, and gives you a chance to get noticed.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Karpathy laid out the future of software engineering.

Ironically, this is how desk jobs will be from now on. Whether its graphic designing, video editing, or programming.

Either you level up from junior to senior or you are out of your desk job.

2/

Whatever product exists in the world can be its own subreddit and vice-versa.

If you lack ideas, look for a big enough subreddit and build your idea around it, especially if its a fast-growing subreddit so you can jump on a trend.

3/

The more scale you have, the dumber things you have to make.

Be clear, not clever.

Rabbit Holes

1. How to make 8-figures by selling things online with Alen Sultanic by Maria Sparagis

2. From 0 to 500K Monthly Visitors: Veed.io SEO Success Story by Minuttia

3. How I got my site into ChatGPT (and why you should too) by /r/SaaS

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