How to make competitors look like aliens 🛸

The 2-sentence trick that destroys any competitor

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Right now, someone is googling “[Your company] vs [Competitor]”.

Most companies panic and build BORING comparison pages. You know them: “We’re 30% faster... Better support... More features...”

The best companies don’t even play this game.

Here’s what they do instead:

💡 The marketing idea

Make competitors look like aliens from a different planet who solve completely different problems than you do.

Asana killed it with this line:

Asana is a work management powerhouse. Trello is a Kanban board.

Two sentences. Game over.

See what they did here?

• ❌ They’re not saying they are “better than Trello”.

• ✅ They’re saying they’re playing a completely different sport.

Why compare a Swiss Army knife to a chef’s knife? Different tools = different jobs.

🏆 The billion-dollar companies already doing this

The best companies use this exact trick:

1. Superhuman: “If Gmail is a Prius, Superhuman is a helicopter.”

2. Intercom: “Customer service has evolved. Zendesk hasn’t.”

3. Klaviyo: “Comparing Klaviyo to Mailchimp is like comparing apples to bananas.”

4. ClickUp: “Notion writes down work. ClickUp helps you get it done.”

Same pattern every time: competitors get tiny boxes, you get entire galaxies.

I really liked the ClickUp example:

🧪 Build your own category-killing statement

Here’s how to create an “alien” analogy for your own comparison page:

1. 📦 Find your competitor’s box. What’s the smallest, most limiting way to accurately describe what they do?

2. 🌌 Create your bigger circle. Now do the opposite for your brand: What broader vision or mission can you credibly own?

3. 💬 Make it sound obvious. Use simple language that makes customers think, “Yeah, that makes sense”.

4. 🗣️ Say it out loud. If it sounds forced, fake, or marketing BS when you say it to someone → start over.

💎 5 positioning templates you can steal today

I’ve seen these five patterns work across dozens of websites:

🔧 Tool vs. Platform:

“[Competitor] is a tool. [Your product] is a platform.”

📈 Task vs. Transformation:

“[Competitor] handles [specific task]. [Your product] transforms [entire workflow].”

⏰ Past vs. Future:

“[Competitor] is how it’s always been done. [Your product] is what comes next.”

🎯 Feature vs. Outcome:

“[Competitor] lets you do [feature]. [Your product] lets you achieve [bigger outcome].”

👤 Doing vs. Being:

“[Competitor] helps you do [task]. [Your product] helps you become [identity].”

⚖️ But it only works if it’s actually true

Don’t claim to be NASA if you’re actually just a better bicycle. Your product must actually deliver on the bigger promise.

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The bottom line: Stop saying “we’re better than them”. Instead, put competitors in tiny boxes while you own entire categories. Make customers think comparing you is like comparing a spaceship to a bicycle.

See you next week ✌️

Tom