Stupid example: Tesla. Toyota reverse engineered their car. Can't make a competing product. Not because it is impossible, but because it is not how the entire supply chain / development is set up. It'd take Toyota a major restructuring of the company to be able to compete.
That's the idea. It doesn't matter how much cash the other side throws at you, you're working where they can't go. Time and time again I see our company out-maneuvering our competitors with less money. Not because we got some super geniuses on the team (okay we got some smart people), but because we started from the ground up working in a spot where our competitor could not go. And so we have years of experience more than our competitor in the thing that our competitor needs to get better at.