

Competition is overrated - shedd
http://cdixon.org/2010/06/26/competition-is-overrated/

======
InfinityX0
In startup land the only competition you should worry about is a guy named
Maslow. He has a pyramid that will fight against you pretty strongly when you
work 16 hour days under your desk in social isolation without result.

You compete, but not in the pure sense of against another company. You compete
more strongly against forces that may not face others, like sociological
needs, acceptance of short-term poverty, and etc.

~~~
kiba
Competition against yourself, against society, and against nature.

Seem to me that startups have only two of the plot elements!

------
T_S_
A friend of mine supplies all of the sand for making cement in his area,
thanks to perfect storm of regulation shutting down his competitors. With a
grin he is fond of saying "A monopoly is a terrible thing...not to have". I
think every business person harbors this fantasy sometimes.

But for innovative products, competition is validation. For you, your
customers and your investors. The reason is that innovation brings some risk
to the customer associated with adoption or integration. To the investor and
innovator this looks like risk of acceptance. Competition eliminates this
particular hurdle.

~~~
kragen
That sounds like a really interesting story. What kind of regulation shuts
down sand producers? Is sand environmentally hazardous? Does warning workers
about silicosis with sand MSDSes cost a lot?

------
yoseph
Great quote:

"Startups are primarly competing against indifference, lack of awareness, and
lack of understanding — not other startups."

Couldn't agree more.

~~~
richlittlehale
Agreed on the quote. It's so easy to get wrapped up in your competitors. But
if competitors have bad products, that leads to focusing on doing a bad thing
just a little bit better, which doesn't lead to a great product.

That's why talking to your customers and focusing on indifference, awareness
and understanding are so critical.

------
paulgb
It's interesting to note in light of the Garry Tan quote at the top that
Posterous recently started a campaign targeted directly at its competition[1].
I think it's a great quote, just trying to emphasize that it's applicable to
the early stages but not necessarily the later ones.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/posterous-thinks-your-
startup...](http://www.businessinsider.com/posterous-thinks-your-startup-
sucks-and-it-isnt-afraid-to-say-so-2010-6)

~~~
webwright
That Garry Tan quote is really a PG quote. I lost count of the number of times
Paul said that during YC.

~~~
rantfoil
Amen.

------
_delirium
Aren't there some areas where this is more true than others? There are dozens
of good ideas in online selling/auctions/etc. that have failed mostly because
they weren't able to overcome the entrenched incumbent, eBay, but may quite
possibly have done well if eBay didn't exist. A similar hurdle faces anyone
trying to take on PayPal, or at this point, Twitter (e.g. StatusNet's #1
barrier to acceptance is Twitter's dominance). I would imagine the Gmail
juggernaut totally changes the playing field for anyone who was once
contemplating a freemium webmail startup as well.

It seems that's a big part of the indifference equation also. If you say "I'm
doing X", and everyone replies with "well doesn't [Big Player] already do X?",
you have an extra hurdle to get over there: not just convince them it's a cool
idea, but convince them you do it better or differently enough than the
competition.

Though if he means only the more narrow: don't worry about competitors who
_haven't actually succeeded_ (yet), then I agree.

------
oxygen
What about the winner-take-all markets?

------
lakeeffect
I was at a rock show and before the singer started she said make sure to go
out back and get a burger. The placement of the back button in the title
allowed me to skip this post. It would have made a heavier impact at the end
of the story, "Now hit the back button."

