

Ask HN: Should I allow a potential competitor to embed my product for free? - thrasher

Hi HN,<p>I've been in a dilemma and was wondering if the smart folks on HN could help me.<p>1. Here's the situation:<p>- I've made a small product that solves a problem bounds better than anything else currently available.<p>- After 3 days of launching, I've gotten 20,000 uniques with 25% return visitors over those 3 days.<p>- This potential competitor is one of the biggest entities in this space, but does not focus solely on my product area.  They are really more like a community outlet, combining everything to do with the space onto one site.<p>- In order to market the product, I've visited and posted on that said community site to gather most of the visitors mentioned above.  Visitors have posted how the service is much better than what the competitor site offers, slightly angering competitor site and making it wary it might lose its advertisement revenue tied to the product.<p>- This potential competitor site reaches upwards of a few million uniques a month internationally.  Known as the be-all end-all in this space.  I.e the Walmart of this space.<p>2. Here are my options:<p>- Forget about everything, buckle down and continue refining the product, fixing bugs and pushing features while growing my user base.<p>- Offer an opportunity to embed my technology on their site.  I would lose a lot of direct access users onto my site, but gain incredible brand recognition and an opportunity to upsell better features on my site.<p>- Offer to embed for free, greatly enhancing the likelihood of them accepting an embed offer with the thought that the increase in brand recognition and # of users of the product with very well worth whatever missed potential revenue charged.<p>3. Some other factors:<p>- The main monetization method I am thinking of doesn't depend on the users being on the base site.<p>- The timeframe to make the offer is short.  The longer I wait, the more likely this competitor site will rally its own developers in order to copy my product.<p>- Making a specialized embed version will require some time to adapt to the new site, stealing away some development time for the main site.<p>- I am on version 1.0.  The embed will give identical capability for the competitor site.  Though this is only until I release more advanced features for the base site.<p>- There is no user registration involved.<p>I very much appreciate any consideration.  Been thinking hard at the situation.  I think I have come to a conclusion, but I wanted to poll the brilliant HN community before I commit to a pathway.
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Travis
Sounds like you should work with them. They know your industry, they know your
product is good (yay for validation!).

IMO, having a channel directly to users you would not otherwise reach
outweighs any of the potential negatives. Plus, you said it yourself: they
aren't really a direct competitor.

I would advise against offering it for free. If they are cash poor, offer to
split revenues on XYZ with them. If they are cash rich, you can try to license
it, sell it, or any number of things.

But if you have a revenue sharing agreement in place, their interests are
aligned with yours. They will help/push you to monetize, and they will be
highly motivated to buy you out if it's successful.

So you get users, exposure to potential suitors, and a clear possibility of an
exit strategy. I would ignore the "branding" concern -- branding is for the
big boys and snake oil salesmen. You don't want to "build a brand", you just
want to sell your product.

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niico
tl;dr

Should you let competitors embed? YES. Eventually, they will use the same
service that you provide so why not letting them use yours and getting free
links in exchange ;)

