
When you find out you’re the copycat - bbirnbaum
https://bbirnbaum.com/when-you-find-out-youre-the-copycat/
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tixocloud
Ben, listen to your users and your heart. Competition is great as it validates
a space and with a product like yours, there is more than enough room for
other players. Best book to read for positioning yourself is Obviously Awesome
by April Dunford. While you think Mailbrew is the competition, the real
competition is “not doing anything”. As someone also mentioned, competition
means there’s a need and may make it easier for people to understand what
you’re doing. Every loves to harp on what makes you unique and sets you apart
but do your users even know if any of your competitors even exist?

Highly recommend April’s book. As she puts it well, feature-rich might be
considered complex, bloated while less features make it simple, elegant. It’s
all in the messaging.

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abraae
Some sage said to me early on in my career that you can't sell your product if
you don't have any competition. I've found that potential customers often
develop comfort with you once they can position you with regard to someone
else.

"We're like X, but cheaper"

"We're like Y, but designed for mobile"

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redis_mlc
> you can't sell your product if you don't have any competition

What he meant was that competitors indicate there's a market.

It's unlikely that he meant that having competitors for competitors sake was
useful in itself.

An interesting example is Airbnb vs. the existing "legit" homestay sharing
companies.

The older companies proved there was a market, but Airbnb grew quickly without
the older competitors being top of mind. And in fact, Airbnb actually
illegally competed with hotels, not sharing homestays.

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folli
My two cents: go ahead, do it anyway and use the competition as inspiration on
which features to add, which to leave away and which to improve.

I was in a similar situation some time ago. I started working on an app with
the main reason to teach myself Android programming. After a while I was quite
content with the app and contemplated releasing it on the app store. I then
started to become aware that this was a space were over a dozen other apps
existed. I decided to go ahead anyway. Now it has grown to become a source of
a bit of additional income and I dare to say meanwhile it's the most useful
one of its kind on the app store (but still not the most popular one).

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jborak
It's great to have options and alternatives. I feel like calling your
application a copy-cat is being harsh. What you've discovered is that there is
a now a market of providers for the category of your application.

If there was only one instance of any sort of application or tool the world
would be boring and we'd be stuck with only stale options.

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kolinko
Having some competition is awesome, even if they are more advanced.

They will help to build awareness of the need, and some users will not like
their approach - possibly liking your more.

Keep going! :D

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lostmyoldone
To differentiate, better is often not as important as it seems, different
might be enough, and sometimes even why is enough.

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jakelazaroff
Finding an established competitor can be great news! It’s an easy way to
validate demand for your product.

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blickentwapft
Imagine if google gave up because altavista existed.

