
Ask HN: Should I make a lower cost replica of niche software? - 93po
I&#x27;ve recently been looking into making some software for small to medium sized businesses and someone I know mentioned how there&#x27;s software used for a part of the real estate world where there&#x27;s only a single big player and they&#x27;re quite expensive.<p>I am hesitant to build software that already exists because it seems sort of pointless in the grand scheme of the universe. And it seems like a tough spot to compete only on price. But it does seem like a pretty safe bet for making some income and the scope of the project is feasible for a single developer over some months.<p>Any advice or opinions appreciated.
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dvduval
I don't know if you have just taken a cursory look or you have actually used
the software that you're going to compete against. My advice would be just to
find someone who is using the other software that would love to work with you
in making something that is competitive. That way you can get some continuing
advice on the details. having done similar to what you're describing, it is
usually the details that can take up the most time. It's easy to get the
basics shell up and running but the details can increase the time and cost
more than you expected in the beginning.

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japhyr
> It's easy to get the basics shell up and running but the details can
> increase the time and cost more than you expected in the beginning.

Yes, and I think this is particularly true in the real estate world. It's ripe
for disruption in many ways, but there also seem to be a lot of domain- and
region-specific issues to work through.

I am not too familiar with the real estate world, I've just been through the
process of buying and selling a home a couple times, and I've read a few
articles about the role of realtors and realty software in the process.

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seanwilson
> I am hesitant to build software that already exists because it seems sort of
> pointless in the grand scheme of the universe

It's unlikely what you build will be identical unless you intend to make an
exact copy. You really should target a niche that is being ignored and have
something that differentiates your software from existing competitors.

That said, I don't think competing on cost as your only difference is a good
idea at all. If your software is solving a real business problem that brings
in big income, why would a business care about saving a (relatively) small
amount of money? If you become popular, could the big player wipe you out by
offering a cheaper price tier? Is price going to be enough to make businesses
take a risk of moving away from the established player? Will your low cost
make paid advertising infeasible?

Also, don't underestimate the difference in the time it takes to build a quick
prototype that mostly works, and building something robust + user friendly
that people will be willing to pay money for.

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byoung2
It could be that the price of the software reflects the effort that goes into
the sales cycle, or ongoing support. Say you can hack together a competing
product in a few months. You still have to go out and win over customers from
the 800lb gorilla. That may be harder than you realize. They may also value a
more expensive product more than a cheaper one.

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muzani
Larger companies also have economy of scale - they can hire product managers,
have a constant recruitment funnel for support, have a proper sales process,
etc.

Marketing costs can be significant - I often see sales/marketing take up about
30%-50% of the final price of software.

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jppope
Competing in situations like that can be a lot of fun, and if the market
opportunity is actually good then you could make quite a few dollars in the
process. I agree with byoung2 though... you need to consider the sales
process. I would recommend seeing if you can get someone to pay you to build
it.

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eps
Depends on the niche, but a decade ago I remember talking to someone who
worked on TopProducer, which is a Canadian-made business management software
suite for RE agents.

It was an absolute junk by this dev's own assessment. Slow, bloated, buggy.
Development was disorganized and perpetually behind the schedule. It was also
really expensive, but it endured because the industry is really conservative
(they like their crappy tools regardless) and the vendor lock-in is a major
factor. Lots of hidden complexity too, including the nuances of business flow.

Don't know what niche you have in mind, but do talk to the target clients
before making a decision. You may discover that they don't really see a
problem where you see one, nor that they are excited to see it fixed and pay
you for that privilege.

~~~
dirktheman
This. I did consulting for a while and sales people don't seem to understand
the amount of time, money and effort it costs to switch software suites. Sure,
your product does x better and is cheaper, but the current suite is
painstakingly shaped to match our needs over the years. To recreate the same
situation in a new software suite will take 6-12 months (while running the
outgoing suite as well since business has to continue as usual), meaning
double workload on the staff involved. And don't even get me started on
teaching Jen from accounting how to use the new software because the old
software was 'running just fine' and 'she's been using it for decades'...

To most organizations, the cost of a software suite is a factor when they're
in the market for something new. But when you're offering an alternative to
something they're already using the price isn't really a factor.

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__oh_es
We were recently asked by a client to build a relatively simple feature -
wouldn’t have taken us more than a week.

After taking a deeper look at existing services we noted they were all
surprisingly expensive - and in the same bracket.

Turned out access to a particular API and ensuring the process and output of
the service would be legally inadmissible were the real cost, and we actually
wouldn’t be able to compete with the existing services.

Not saying don’t go for it, just make sure you understand that the cost may
not be the problem on the surface.

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hzengin
Why not? But do your research first on why there is only one big player and
why it's expensive. Especially if the problem looks somehow simple. Check if
there are legal requirements, uptime or support promises and so on. Just an
example; you may need to compensate a client couple of millions every so often
because of some wrong calculation or a 15 mins downtime in some industries.

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muzani
If the problem is big enough, cost isn't a problem. You'll also find that the
cheaper clients/users are much worse. In fact, a lot of people even raise
prices to cut down on user support and "fire" some troublesome customers.

It's probably easier to do higher quality replicas of niche software as a lot
of them are poorly done.

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auganov
How niche? What's the total market size? Whether or not you can make some
income is one question... But can you make an income you'll be really happy
with? Will you be able to hire a replacement for yourself if you want to go do
something different? What's the best case scenario?

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75dvtwin
There is a number of companies that make what's called 'app-scripts'.

One is appdupe.com there are a couple of others.

Basically they take X-like-Y business ideas that demonstrated, nominally,
their worth (in either solving a business problem, or attracting investors).

And they just duplicate those models -- uber-like, tinder-like, etsy/ebay-
like, and so on.

They generate the source for apps, backend services, etc --- you just give
them your twitter handle, name, logo, contact, fb page... whatever.

I also read when researching this, that some of them produce 50 apps per week.

Apparently, again 3rd hand info, that their services start at 10K usd and go
up from there....

I have no idea about the quality, may be bad and may be they they will end up
charging 10 times more what you though initially...

So imaging that people are not shy of duplicating a business idea and just
applying perhaps to something else, or just a different geographical
region....

It is definitely not pointless building software that already exists.

I would say go for it...

Either of 3 things will happen

a) you are successful and completion fails

b) they are successful and you fail

c) you are both successful

in all 3 scenarios -- end users seem to be benefit.

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dogweather
If it's a big market, there's enough money to go around to support multiple
products.

When Google was introduced, the search engine market was packed.

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sloaken
Yes. If you do not, someone else will, and you will regret it.

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kleer001
In the end, where are you adding value for your end user's lives?

