There are three types of companies: Those that innovate, those that follow and those that wonder what happened. In other words, there are those that enter a market first, often making an innovative product (e.g. Sony), those that systematically follow (e.g. Panasonic) and finally, those that lost track of time (e.g. Kodak).
In marketing there is a terminology, that of 'the first mover advantage', which, as its name suggests, refers to the advantage a company gains when it is the first to penetrate a market. It refers exclusively to large companies entering a relatively new market.
For example, Amazon was not the first company to sell books online, but it was the first large company to invest significantly in this venture. When others entered to sell books online, Amazon, cashing in on its popularity, was ready for the next big thing: it marketed a range of diverse products. Other examples include Gillette with its razors and Sony with its stereos.
And Coca-Cola was invented in 1886, five years after the debut of two small companies producing cola-type soft drinks. With smart marketing, it captured a large market share, which it retains to this day - when Pepsi appeared in 1898, it was already selling a million gallons a year. Other companies that shook things up with their entry and gained a strong lead were Uber, Kellogg's, Apple and eBay.
The main advantage of being the first to enter a market is obvious: it gains widespread recognition and builds a loyal customer base (often by leveraging patents or entering into exclusive agreements with intermediaries and suppliers).
Other advantages are: it has the time to make improvements and refine the product, through economies of scale it manages to reduce costs, it can make better use of resources (e.g. Wal-Mart placed its stores in small towns, discouraging others from entering later) and of course it can deter consumers from switching brands (high switching costs).
Of course, the pioneer is almost always followed by competitors, who enter the market with similar (me-too products - it costs 60-75% cheaper to copy a product than to make a new one) or improved products, in order to take a piece of the pie and, why not, challenge the leader's leadership, proving that you don't always have to innovate to be successful.
More often than not, the pioneer becomes not flexible enough or thinks he is invincible. It loses market share and eventually is moving to the second or the third place - just as FAGE did in America with its Greek style yogurt, which, although it invented the market, was beaten big time by Chobani. As Bill Gates rightly put it: 'Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose'.
History has proven that both pioneers and those who follow can be highly successful. The latter, for example, do not need to risk so much, nor invest so much capital (since the pioneer has already 'educated' the consumer). On top of that, they monitor the market closely, make improvements (it is a myth that the latter is simply imitating the former) and avoid making the same mistakes that the market leader made.
For example, Google was not the first search engine (it was preceded by others such as Yahoo and AltaVista), but it was the first "smart" search engine. And Southwest Airlines, although a late entrant, nevertheless managed to become the second largest airline in the world (in terms of passenger numbers) by focusing on short-haul flights. Starbucks was not the first company to sell coffee beans either, but it was the first to create a 'nice and cosy' environment for the average American.