
Ask HN: Does bootstrapping a clone within an established market make sense? - Remed
Fresh account here created to ask this question. I&#x27;m in my late thirties and I spent my entire career at tech startups (as founder or employee up to CTO and VP Product positions). I never scored really big, but I earned well. I&#x27;m currently free to start something new and I might look for a new job as tech or product lead, but I&#x27;m also entertaining a thought of launching a SaaS business.<p>I don&#x27;t have a groundbreaking or innovative idea, but I&#x27;m great at execution. I&#x27;m more than happy to bootstrap something small, without ever taking outside capital, a company which will never grow over few dozen employees. I&#x27;m looking for a quite likely path to build a $5-25M company rather than a quite unlikely path to build a $100M-1B company (the latter seems to be the dominating goal in startup community).<p>Considering the above, can creating a clone within an established area be the way to go? Something like another website monitoring service, another ticket system or another ecommerce CRM. None of these is actually something I want to pursue, but you can get the idea.<p>I understand that building a product is just the beginning and that much more effort is required into marketing and sales and I&#x27;m prepared for that (I know that underestimating it is a common mistake made by techies wanting to launch their own business), but they are also the areas I&#x27;m least experienced (although not totally inexperienced), so I&#x27;m unsure if this is a good idea.<p>I would love your opinions on whether what I want to do is viable. Or should I forget it because I will just do better by launching a software house or by creating an offshore development center for some US&#x2F;EU company (I&#x27;m from the Central&#x2F;Eastern Europe so it&#x27;s the best place for this considering talent&#x2F;culture&#x2F;salaries mix)? Let me know what do you think or share your experiences if you&#x27;ve done or tried the same. Thanks!
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mindcrime
I'm paraphrasing a little bit, due to imperfect memory, but I've always been
inspired by something Bob Parsons (of Godaddy fame) said:

"Never be afraid to enter a crowded market. Just be better than everybody
else".

So yeah, if you're confident enough if your ability to execute at a high(er)
level, then I think it can make sense to do something that's fundamentally
similar to an existing business.

OTOH, it you want to make _big_ money, it might be better to pursue something
in line with Peter Thiel's ideas about wanting a "monopoly" and having
something that's 10x better instead of being an incremental improvement.

I think either model can work though, depending on your goals and on your
ability to execute.

See also: discussion of "fast follower strategy".

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/avaseave/2014/10/14/fast-
followe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/avaseave/2014/10/14/fast-followers-
not-first-movers-are-the-real-winners/#5bfe137f9d7e)

[https://hbr.org/2012/06/first-mover-or-fast-
follower](https://hbr.org/2012/06/first-mover-or-fast-follower)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2016/06/02/why-fast-
follo...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2016/06/02/why-fast-follower-is-
yesterdays-tech-and-business-strategy/#47ea05f74805)

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alanorourke
I honestly beleive taking this approach puts you at an advantage and a better
chance of success. Everyone else has done the ground work for you and educated
the market. Just do not be worse than them and you have a good business.

