

Ask HN: What is the best way to find out if your startup idea is already taken? - marknutter

Whenever I come up with an idea for a startup or small project, I inevitably have to hit google, the crunchbase, hacker news, etc., to find out if it has already been done and if so how well. This process is pretty hit or miss for me, though, and already I've built something I thought I had scoped out the competition for only to get sideswiped by some better funded or better implemented effort.  What's the best way to do this research, and would it make sense for there to be a web service out there that aggregated all the startups, weekend projects, side projects, dead pooled websites, etc. to make it easier to do market research for our new ideas?  I almost think a service that provided this information reliably is itself a good startup idea, but I just want to know what the general consensus is on it.
======
jacquesm
I wouldn't worry about it at all.

So what if it is 'taken', it's not like someone has a monopoly on ideas that
have already been used before.

Even stronger you can assume that your idea has been taken.

When google launched their search engine, 'search' as an idea had been taken.
They redefined it to 'really good search' and the rest if history. Facebook
wasn't the first social network and I suspect they won't be the last (though
they may still be the biggest).

Do the very best you can when you execute your idea and then keep doing that,
ever refining it. As time goes by the headstart - if you're the first mover -
will increase, if you're not the first mover the distance to the leader should
decrease. Relentlessly focus on making your site the best and you'll be able
to take on even an established competitor. It won't be easy, but it is doable.

As for that search example, google now has competition. DuckDuckGo is very
very tiny, but they're doing some small things better than google.

Search done 'a little bit better' apparently is still a valid idea, even so
many years after 'search' was supposedly taken as an idea.

Competition is good for you, it keeps you sharp.

~~~
staunch
I agree in general, but there are definite exceptions. Most solutions are
mediocre at best. That means you have a good shot if you can do a better than
mediocre job.

Sometimes though there is someone who clearly understands the problem as well
(or better) and whose solution is genuinely great. If a big part of your
motivation is to solve an unsolved problem this is going to suck the wind out
of you.

So much of the world's problems are unsolved (or solved badly) that it doesn't
make sense to go head-to-head on a problem that's already being solved really
well. At least not for a tiny startup that needs every advantage it can get.

Of course just because you don't see any good competitors doesn't mean there
won't be:

 _"Looking just at existing competitors can give you a false sense of
security. You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not
just what you can see people doing. A corollary is that you shouldn't relax
just because you have no visible competitors yet. No matter what your idea,
there's someone else out there working on the same thing."_ \--
<http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>

~~~
jacquesm
Normally speaking when a company is big, well entrenched and executing at the
top of their game you're aware of them and not wondering 'what if this idea is
taken?'.

The simple fact that you are wondering that means that there is room for a
competitor.

You still have to do your market research and map the competition but don't
let their mere existence stop you.

~~~
staunch
Again, in general I agree...but there are frequent exceptions.

The most impressive competitor might still be up-and-coming (not necessarily
big and entrenched). You also may simply not know about them, even if millions
of other people do.

------
philwelch
Think from your user's perspective. How is your user going to find out that
you exist? Apply that same process. If you find competitors that way, beat
them. If you don't find competitors that way, neither will your user.

Being sideswiped by a better funded or better implemented effort you didn't
see coming is a problem, but not one worth worrying about. Worry about making
_your_ effort the best it can be. If it makes it easier, just assume you have
a better funded, better implemented competitor in stealth mode.

 _Would it make sense for there to be a web service out there that aggregated
all the startups, weekend projects, side projects, dead pooled websites, etc.
to make it easier to do market research for our new ideas?_

Yes, but only so all those startups and weekend projects could advertise. And
maybe not even then, because people who have the time and inclination to go
around looking for new startups to make their life easier already read all the
blogs that announce that kind of thing.

~~~
Travis
I think this is a great response. Especially because once you've figured out
how to find your competitors, you've discovered the common channels that your
customers will come through. This allows you to identify how you're going to
get traction, which is all kinds of good when you're early stage.

------
photon_off
The things I've been working on for the the past year solve exactly this
problem. Mainly, I've been interested in connecting information between
various websites. A subset of this goal is to cross reference a person to
cruchbase, then jump to their site, then view its rankings on Quantcast,
Alexa, etc. And, for any URL, I want to find the most similar websites, and
repeat the process there.

The tools I've come up with are: <http://www.moreofit.com> and
<http://www.dashler.com/toolbar/>

If you find one moderately popular example of something similar to your idea,
plug the URL into moreofit.com. It will find you the most mathematically
similar websites (based on Delicious tag vectors). There are other advanced
options from there that I'll leave to you to figure out.

You can use the toolbar to scope out sites with unheard of productivity. That
is, open the toolbar on the URL you're scoping out, and use the moreofit.com
shortcut to view similar sites. Or you can use the Delicious shortcut to jump
to the result on delicious and see how popular it is there. Or you can use the
Quantcast/Alexa/etc shortcut to view traffic stats of that domain. Or you can
use Backtype/UberVU to see various discussions of that URL. Or you can use the
Twitturly shortcut to view tweets that contain that URL. Or you can the Reddit
shortcut to view the top submissions from that domain. Or you can search
within that website using Google/Bing/etc.

Hopefully you'll find these tools helpful. /shamelessplug

I've been using these tools for a few months now, and I can tell you that the
internet is far more vast than you could ever believe. It's likely something
extremely similar to your idea has been implemented, but just never gained
traction.

------
mixmax
when Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic there were other formidable
competitors already in the game. His market research consisted of a phone call
to book a trans atlantic flight with British Airways. After holding the line
for half an hour without getting through he concluded that either their
customer service sucked in which case he could do better, or there were so
many people wanting to fly across the atlantic that they clogged up the phones
in which case there would be plenty of customers for him.

The point is that businessplans, market research and information gathering on
competitors is not as good a use of your time as simply trying it out. You
don't need to be first, or even best. You just need to put something out there
and work with the feedback you get.

Note that successful entreprensurs don't have better ideas than anyone else,
they just have more of them and they do something about it. Which is why many
of them have several failed ventures behind them. See Gabriel Weinberg's post
that's on the frontpage right now for an example:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803809>

so just do it. Get something out there and show it to us.

------
andrewtbham
I agree this is a problem... the biggest problem with searching google and
crunch base... is that if it's a nascent market, it's not clear what words to
search for.

------
bond
Tell everybody...

