Agree with most of what you're saying. What I was trying to communicate is that trying to win by doing things that seem more difficult than everybody else isn't a strategy, it's a cop-out. It can feel unmatchable, but often it's actually a waste of effort.

There absolutely are times when the work required really is hard. Your internationalization example is a great one -- you had to do 3 months of hard work, but the payoff was huge. And you didn't do this until the lower hanging fruit was already done.