

Ask HN: A stealth project disrupted - khangtoh

Warning: Sorry that this is a kinda long post, but I really need some advice on my next steps from follow Hackers.<p>2 Months back, I had a really brilliant idea. And I'm sure every entrepreneur have their own virtual bucket they use to store all their potential ideas. You would then rank those ideas based on several factors, ie, complexity, revenue model, type of market, etc. And surely, the algorithm is unique to each owns, since everyone has different situation's and priorities. To make the long story short, this idea that I had, was ranked number one on my list of ideas to pursue. It has repeatability being said, alot, that an idea is nothing and its the execution that counts AND there is probably someone else out there who has the same idea OR is probably doing it right now.<p>Well that happens to be damn true. Yesterday, I read on Techcrunch about a startup that has been around since 2005 and is doing something very similar to my idea.<p>http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/14/trackvia-raises-series-a-for-point-and-click-databases/
Trackvia provides software as a service for transforming ordinary spreadsheets into versatile databases.<p>In short, my idea has something to do with spreadsheets and is to a certain extend, similar to Trackvia but I strongly believe that my model will appeal more to the target users. Of course my targeted users are closely similar to TrackVia's - Small and Medium Businesses.<p>So what should I do now? Keep on pursuing this idea of my knowing that there is another well-funded startup that has a 2 year head start ahead of me? Drop the idea, and think about the second on my list?
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mechanical_fish
This is awesome news. Read this:

<http://www.ericsink.com/Choose_Your_Competition.html>

 _The big problem with avoiding competition is that you are also avoiding
customers. The existence of a competitor indicates the existence of paying
customers. If you can't find anyone who is making money with your idea, you
really need to wonder if there is any money to be made there at all._

Now you're primed to understand me when I say: Don't give up yet. This startup
is doing valuable research for you, and it isn't costing you a dime. See if
you can figure out if they're making any money. See if you can find some of
their customers and ask them what they think of the product. Try the product.
Take their product to one of your potential customers, demo it to them, and
see if they like it or not -- think of it as a prototype for your own product,
except that all it cost you to develop is the cost of buying a copy from your
competitor.

If, perchance, the existing startup has uncovered a huge market for this kind
of product, chances are they can't capture the whole market. You can grab some
of it. If their product rocks and has a plugin architecture, sell a handy
plugin and expand from there. If their product sucks for a certain subset of
the market, build your own version. If their product just plain sucks, and
they have a market anyway, take them on -- there's gold in them thar hills!

More likely, there is no market and this startup will obligingly discover this
for you by building a decent product and then failing anyway. You will learn
from their failure, while spending nothing! And they have a three-year head
start on their failure, so you might not have to wait too long!

I haven't said anything about the idea, and I don't have time to research
it... but based on the one-sentence pitch I urge you to read this and come to
terms with it before you proceed:

[http://neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2003/09/29/5458....](http://neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2003/09/29/5458.aspx)

It's hard to believe how true that cartoon is until you've lived it. So be
careful, or your customer support costs will _eat your business alive_.

~~~
edw519
Every month or so, a comment comes up on hn that is so good it _has_ to become
bulletin board material. This is one.

We often get so bogged down in the code, we forget to use common sense. This
post, especially the "perchance" paragraph is loaded with options to "find a
way". Thanks, mechanical_fish!

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coglethorpe
"So what should I do now? Keep on pursuing this idea of my knowing that there
is another well-funded startup that has a 2 year head start ahead of me? Drop
the idea, and think about the second on my list?"

That depends. Is it a big market? Every Coke has a Pepsi, you know and every
Nike has a Rebock and Adidas, a New Balance, and ... you get the idea.

You just have to be sure that you can find a way to get a piece of that pie.
Is there a certain niche you can target? Are you really able to do something
at least comparable to the others, or even better?

You may need a team or to find your own funding to compete.

And I wish you the best of luck!

------
icey
There is more than one competitor (scroll down to the bottom of the article
you linked and you can see a few more).

On one hand, it's validation that it's a good idea. On the other, you have to
be convinced that your execution can be better.

~~~
khangtoh
Are you are referring to Quickbase? Thanks for bringing that up.

~~~
icey
Hmm. No. I'm referring to Blist and DabbleDB (which are linked at the bottom
of the article you posted).

------
brk
My random thoughts:

Many people talk about "first mover advantage", although often times large
companies like Microsoft, Google, etc., prove that there is a larger argument
for second or third (or n) mover advantage.

Not to be too harsh, but I doubt many (if any) of us here have ever had a
truly unique idea. The fact that somebody else noticed the same hole in the
market and attempted to architect a way to fill it is no more noteworthy than
the sun rising. My personal opinion is that in most cases this neither
validates or nullifies YOUR idea, it is simply one of many variables to take
into consideration.

It is very important to be aware of and monitor your competitors in any
market. However, if you create a better solution, their existence will be less
than a footnote to you. Keep an eye on your competitors, but don't obsess over
watching them and worrying when they (or you) solve a particular part of the
puzzle differently.

My advice: go and build your solution IF you think it is whole and complete
and solves a compelling and valuable problem.

If your entire user market is worth only $5M (and I'm not saying that it is),
it doesn't really matter if there are 1 or 100 competitors, NOBODY will make
any money anyway :)

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prakash
All you need is paying customers, don't worry about competition.

Also, using your current idea, think about a generalized version of your idea
or one that focuses, say only on the financial vertical.

------
run4yourlives
Keep going. Competition only proves to validate the worthiness of the idea. Is
there only one car manufacturer? Telephone utility? Clothing Store?

Of course not.

