Agility, speed and nous enable Davids of the world to take on Goliaths

A jet-ski has many advantages over an ocean liner. As a challenger brand, you must use all of your competitive advantages; one is speed and agility. Bureaucracy in traditional big companies means they can take a long time to make decisions. You must exploit this and ensure your company is on top of the latest consumer trends. To illustrate, online retailing has been prominent for nearly 10 years nevertheless the biggest retailers are only just beginning to acknowledge that the internet is here to stay.

The big guys have huge advertising budgets with which to influence the buying public. To compete, a challenger brand must ensure that its operation is as lean and efficient as possible; that it comprises lots of little things. At Kogan we call these the "one-percenters". We run a paperless office, not just because it makes the business more environmentally friendly nevertheless because it helps us to find information quicker and keep costs down. The same goes for making our packaging slimmer, and using a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service for all international phone calls. All the one-percenters add up.

Never let short-term profitability or a few early successes divert you from building a strong business that will be in operation for many years to come, like the big companies you are taking on. It is important to have a clear goal for what your business wants achieve. It is what will make you and your team get out of bed and come to work every morning. The big guys have been around for a long time and you will not beat them overnight. A lot of people who don't know much about business often say to me: "Wow, Ruslan, you've become an overnight success." And I tell them: "Yeah, it's taken me 29 years.''