Watch any market long enough, and a pattern emerges. Giants dominate the center. They carry trust, history, and entrenched advantage. But on their fringes-at the “edges”- that’s where friction accumulates, unmet needs linger, and opportunity opens up.
If you’re a founder or builder, your story often begins at an edge.
Look at some big names: Oracle pulling massive cloud contracts, Salesforce investing heavily in AI, or ServiceNow with nearly 98% renewals. These companies aren’t static. They adapt, defend, and evolve.
But adapting at scale is slow. Giants shifting direction tends to be like turning a supertanker.
Edges are where gaps show up-the areas the center can’t serve well, where customers face breakdowns or inefficiencies.
- Dash0 isn’t trying to kill Datadog. It’s attacking cost transparency and developer-friendly observability.
- Creatio isn’t battling Salesforce head on. It’s excelling in targeted automation workflows.
- Onyx and Ciroos build AI assistants that act across Slack, GitHub, other tools-doing what big platforms rarely allow.
Edge companies are sharper. They focus. They don’t try to cover everything. They pick one broken workflow and make it unmistakably better.
What Builders Should Do
Here’s how to work at the edges:
- Pick one edge. Don’t spread yourself too wide. Find a workflow that feels broken and make solving it your mission.
- Prove impact fast. Show real results-less cost, faster resolution, fewer clicks. Not “someday,” but "day one."
- Design to co-exist. If your product complements or plugs into central platforms, adoption becomes easier.
- Expect pushback. Giants will respond-they'll build similar features, acquire rivals, change pricing. That’s not a setback. It’s a signal that you’re on something they feel threatened by.
The center is crowded and slow. The edges are fluid, full of gaps, and often ignored. If you build at the edges-solve that one sharp problem, deeply-you give yourself space to grow and avoid direct confrontation until you’re ready.
Giant doesn’t sleep. But ideal edges give you room to breathe and move faster. Start there.