What does the the second rat gets the cheese mean?

Answer 1

"It's the second rat that gets the cheese!"

This refers to the fact that if a rat trap is baited with cheese, the first rat there will spring the trap and die, but the second one can then go and eat the cheese in perfect safety.

This is a lesson to those that think that being the first is always the best. As those in the military know, arriving first does not always work out well. The most common means of discoverin the location of the ambush while you are advancing is watching those in front - when they are shot down, you know to take cover.

It also has business applications. Inventing a new product, finding investors to believe in it, overcoming the regulatory hurdles in marketing a new item (safety concerns, environmental impact, etc.) can be done only at an enormous investment in time, effort and money.

Sadly, having done all that, you then get to see three competitors spring up, selling products much like, but not quite like, your's. And they didn't have as much trouble, as you already invented it, proved it was worth investing in, and paid for all the environmental impact studies!