RE: Advantage Forterra Yes & NoYou bring up a very good argument hjangel, and one which can very well be the case to attract other competitors to get on the worm castings bandwagon as early as possible.
There is no doubt that WormSense is a good, enhanced product, and that is what orginally brought FTE to my attention. I personally like to trade for the promo and then sell, but I missed out on this one. I just wasn't sure if there was another leg up coming here. That is yet to be seen, but I'm not all that optimistic there will be one.
The reason is what I've pointed out, but your argument of being the first to market is a valid one.
Only negative here, is that FTE was not a large supplier of fertilizer/soil products prior to this. It would make things much more advantageous if a large fertilizer/soil supplier had come up with the worm castings enhancement idea, and been the first to market this than a company like FTE which has to build from the bottom up.
It takes much more time and money for a startup like FTE to bring a "new and improved" product to market than it does a large supplier with already existing facilities and distribution/sales networks in place.
IMO, for FTE to be successful, they would have to build a facility, which they are, contract enough worm castings suppliers and start selling their product on a large scale without being noticed by competitors so that their product can get the "Brand Recognition" you spoke about prior to competitors coming out with their own worm casting enhanced product.
How will FTE be able to take away their competitor's market share without getting noticed? Unless FTE's competitor's are being run by any one of the Big 3 Auto Executives, I doubt that FTE would go unnoticed.
IMO, once FTE's enhanced product gets noticed, their much larger competitors who have their supply chain in place will waste no time in duplicating what FTE is selling. For FTE to survive, I would say their best bet is to sell their idea. If they choose to compete with the big fish, then they may get a small piece of the pie, but they may also get pushed out altogether, or just make enough money to make a living.
As for becoming a Billion Dollar company, I doubt very much they can without a patent protected technology/product. Good luck.