

Ask HN: How to know if a startup concept has already been done - m4nu

Starting with the assumption that whatever startup idea I can have it&#x27;s already been done in some form somewhere. How would you go about digging out those attempts ? (I mean beside googling which more often than not will yield nothing relevant)
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patio11
This is one of those "Certainly _feels_ like work, but does not actually
advance the business forward, so why bother doing it?" sort of tasks.

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cat9
The most useful refactoring of this is, "have non-sales conversations with
actual intended customers, learn about how they see this problem including how
they're currently dealing with it, which may or may not include existing
tools."

At which point, we're talking about basic customer development interviews,
which are way more useful than "google up a list of possible alternatives."

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mtmail
If there is a company already solving the same problem and you can't find it
within 1h of internet research then they're doing bad marketing and you have a
good chance. The potential customers won't find them either.

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richardbrevig
In my case, Google did not find a competitor that ranks within 30k on Alexa,
has the keywords on their homepage, and has $21m in funding. I found them
after weeks of research. Don't remember the exact blog/comment/thread, but it
wasn't within an hour of beginning my research. :)

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GamblersFallacy
Google wasn't the 1st search engine, Facebook wasn't the 1st social network,
Youtube wasn't the 1st video site.

Execution trumps first mover advantage.

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dayone
improve upon the existing ideas which are poorly executed.

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Terr_
Or which were well-executed, but occurred too-early for whatever market to
form. (As you get older, you see this more and more.)

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jamessantiago
Perform market research

Entrepreneurship starts with creating a business plan. Part of that business
plan is identifying your target market, your competition, and defining how you
are unique. It's not so much that something has been done before but rather
what sets you apart. If your concern is legal, then patents (google scholar)
and trademarks are what you should be looking at. Copywrite is a bit more
difficult but after performing your market research you should have an idea of
what's out there. In other words, who is your target market and what are they
using now that your startup is aiming to satisfy?

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dangrossman
> Copywrite is a bit more difficult

Unless you're copying someone else's code, text or graphics, you're not
infringing their copyright. Copyright would be the "easy one" since it's near
impossible to accidentally infringe, unlike trademarks or patents.

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richardbrevig
Assuming your startup idea is SaaS/web app...

Search on:

* /r/startups and /r/entrepreneur on reddit

* betalist.com

* startuplist.com

* techcrunch

* thenextweb

* venturebeat

I'm working on solving this problem. If you're interested, sign up to stay
updated: rivalseek.com

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anderspetersson
Dont. If it already is a company making money from you idea, there's more
room, so it does not matter.

