[johncampbelljr]

But at this point I might bet on the company with masterful marketing. If there is going to be a de facto standard for SMB POS Square might be able to get there. If Clayton Christensen (Innovator Dilemma) taught me anything it's that feature gaps can be closed quickly. Marketing/Mindshare gaps, not so much.

[UnoriginalGuy]

I learned this lesson the hard way.

Imagine two competitors. Mine got to market first, it had a better feature set, and was more similar to what the consumer was used to (based on similar products on other platforms).

But a competitor shows up. Their product had less features and was "different" to the established things. But their product was easier to use, it had better marketing, and people just flocked to it.

It literally took six months for the competitor to match my offering in terms of features but ultimately none of that matters because if the marketing is good and the UI is easy to use people will just work around everything else/put up with it.

By the time they matched my feature set the writing was already on the wall. Even if I had released an update matching their UI it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference since they already had the reputation/user-base.

[bryans]

Yes, feature gaps can be closed quickly. Unfortunately, Square's app has been lacking such basic functionality (as modifiers) for so long, that it raises some legitimate concerns.