
Your Worst Enemy Is Yourself - jeffmiller
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/your-worst-enemy-is-yourself.html
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waxman
So true. Although, I prefer pg's version:

The only "competitor" you should worry about is the Back Button.*

*<http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>, <http://mixergy.com/paul-graham-design/>

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brianmwang
This is fairly obvious but easy to overlook advice from Fred.

The concept of flow is often mentioned here on HN and letting competitors
destroy flow is an easy trap to fall into. As others have mentioned, the
question remains how much time one should allocate toward observing and
reacting to competitors. While it is undoubtedly above 0, one has to take into
account the opportunity cost involved as well as the energy wasted on
switching gears, which can be quite significant and is often overlooked.

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tyng
Agree with everything said there. The question left unanswered is where to
draw the fine line between focusing on a predefined strategy and react to what
your competitors are doing. Example: today Facebook announced Deals, should
Foursquare just keep doing what it is doing or do something different to
counter Facebook's invasion?

(I personally believe Foursquare should just keep doing what they are doing
but let's discuss this anyway)

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davidw
If it could all be written down and specified in detail, running businesses
could be outsourced to India or Vietnam or somewhere cheap.

My sneaking suspicion is that for many bits of cheap, generic business advice,
there is some equal and opposite bit of advice.

Edit: anyone remember this one from last week?

[http://steveblank.com/2010/11/01/no-business-plan-
survives-f...](http://steveblank.com/2010/11/01/no-business-plan-survives-
first-contact-with-a-customer-%E2%80%93-the-5-2-billion-dollar-mistake/)

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tyng
Very true - for both "in business there's no right or wrong answer", and "no
plan survives contact with enemy". But on the other hand simplified principles
and rules-of-thumb help us make rapid decisions with some good accuracy.

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robryan
As with most thing balance is required, spend to long looking at competition
and you will probably lose cohesion in your app as you struggle to find ways
to keep up on the feature curve, don't spend enough time and you risk being
late to the game on something big thats changed in your space.

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brlewis
Do you think what he says in the 3rd paragraph is the right balance?

 _I am not suggesting that you should put your head in the sand. It is
critical to know what is going on in your market. But it is equally critical
to have a strategy that makes sense in the context of what is going on and
execute it with purpose and pace. If you spend too much time looking over your
shoulder, you will not execute well. I've seen it again and again._

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nands
Right balance is relative to your business and at what state you are in
currently. For a t=0 startup, I would rather concentrate on finishing the
basic feature set and launching asap rather than spending time looking around.
For a business which is entering a growth stage keeping tabs on competitors
and what's new makes more sense.

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wccrawford
If you say that to someone successful, it's very rarely true. It's only really
applicable to those who aren't successful.

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tomjen3
True, but most people aren't successful. Sadly.

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Swizec
Speaking as someone who's been sucked into that hole: It's very cozy in there
and very difficult to get out.

Just remember, you can spend a lifetime finding the optimal path, but you can
only make a step _now_.

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codedivine
The same applies to academic research groups too.

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zoomzoom
The scariest thing is the truth.

