How this channel uses the term In the channel's material, counter-positioning appears in Mike Maples Jr.'s argument about AI strategy: the biggest edge a startup can hold isn't a better product feature, but a business model move — offering AI as a substitute for expensive labor rather than selling yet another software license. Maples flips the usual equation of insight with product features or technical novelty: the real insight can live in the how, not only the what. Why it matters The point of counter-positioning is that an incumbent has a hard time following the challenger without damaging its own model. A company built on selling software seats can't easily pivot to replacing the labor that software was only assisting — so the challenger's advantage comes from the incumbent's unwillingness to copy it, not from any single feature. - Counter-positioning = a strategy where a new entrant's business model is one incumbents can't match without undermining themselves.- In the AI context, it means positioning AI to replace costly labor, not to be another product feature or license.- Maples locates startup insight in the business model (the how), not just in the product (the what).