Don't detail exactly what the innovation is before its ready to sell, it takes time to get something into a product and to get that product into production. Name recognition is everything, for some time the small starup is the name of the innovation, and that recognition does not just vanish. Other companies have built comparable or beter electric cars by now, but you know who im talking about when i say that electric car company.

Alternateivly copy something a large corporation is doing, or better yet, build on something they are doing.

Also employee owned companies tend not to aggressively expand. And governments need to break up the kind of company that is large enough to destroy all competition. That leads me to another opinion, buying another company should not be allowed in a capitalist economy, because that only ever makes the market less free.