

Ask HN: Do you hate your competitors? - matthewer

Hate is a powerful word. When you think of a competitor what emotion pops up?
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patio11
Egads no. Competitors are like ballet dancers -- I understand in an
intellectual sense that they exist, but spend very little time thinking about
them.

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callmeed
We have 3 or 4 main competitors.

Of one, I have much respect. They act like a real company (they are the only
vc-backed co. among us), are pleasant when we chat, and we even send referrals
to one-another when a potential client isn't a "good fit".

Of another, I feel a mix of anger and indifference. They are a horribly run
company and I honestly marvel at the fact they have not imploded yet. Anger
because they treat their customers so poorly (numerous BBB complaints and
forum/Twitter rants).

Of another, confusion and mistrust. This (more recent) competitor was once a
known name working in the industry who then moved on to the workshop circuit
and eventually selling competing software/services. While we've had a decent
relationship in the past and he positions himself as a Christian & a helper in
the industry, he's also very careless with his mouth(IMO). He'll jump at any
opportunity to publish disparaging things about competitors, including blatant
non-truths.

I know the startup thing to do is not focus on competitors and worry about
your products ... which we do ... but at the same I don't ignore them. And I'm
definitely not the type to sit by and do nothing if a competitor is going to
play dirty. I won't drop to their level but I will defend/reply and make sure
they look like a fool.

Needless to say, ours is a weird industry.

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Jun8
I like this quote from Milan Kundera: "Hate traps us by binding us too tightly
to our adversary" If you feel too strongly about your competition, you'll lose
all perspective and get defensive and will tend to copy them.

~~~
megablast
What a great description of what has lead Microsoft astray, in some of their
projects. Zune, Bing, Xbox (although that may yet pay off) expose their hatred
to Apple, Google and Sony.

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edo
We decided to invite the competition over to have a few beers with us. Now we
use the relationship with them to fuel our own competitive streak and to
enhance team cohesion. Just so as long you keep focusing on your own
customers, and solving problems your own way, it works.

~~~
timinman
"Now we use the relationship with them to fuel our own competitive streak and
to enhance team cohesion."

It's human to feel threatened, to take offence, to mistrust, and misjudge.
Even people who try to be noble tend to do it, however there seem to be great
benefits for people (like yourselves) who can put themselves in a position to
learn from their competition. Thanks for sharing.

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wooster
I compete with <http://favstar.fm>

I think Tim is a pretty nice guy. I'd buy him a beer.

~~~
c1sc0
I honestly didn't get what favstar is trying to do. What's your site?

~~~
maushu
"We asked some of our users who've been coming here for a while.
@wondroushippo summarized it well - 'A site tracking what you, your friends,
and everyone else is favoriting on Twitter.'" @ <http://favstar.fm/faq>

According to this, they have to ask their users what they do. I find it
hilarious.

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rwhitman
On a lot of things I've worked on competitors were a great thing - you can see
their mistakes and correct them ahead of time.

But when you first discover a new one who's doing a better job its always a
downer. Founders can get really depressed when a better-funded competitor
comes out of stealth one day. The lowest lows I've experienced on startup
projects routinely stem from the first 24hrs after we've discovered a new
competitor. Especially when the CEO gets spooked there can be crazy emails,
spec changes, scared/angry all-hands meetings etc.

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Eternal_Cowboy
Now, I am in no liberty to answer this, so I will paraphrase what a local
record company owner has said.

"Years ago, I used to watch competitors go down and celebrate. Now, they're
dropping like flies, and we all need to fight to stay open"

Now, his situations pretty specific, but I think what he's saying is that
without competition, you are left alone and vulnerable.Competition is healthy
and necessary, so you shouldn't hate them. You should even help them if
they're in trouble.

~~~
houseabsolute
Well, well. I'm not sure about this. The reason he was sad that his
competitors were going away is because it was evidence that his market was
collapsing. I'm sure he would have been just fine with it if he was absorbing
all the business his competitors had been doing and the overall size of the
market was flat or expanding.

In many ways, your competitors are what's standing in the way of your success.
You can tell yourself that you are trying to outdo yourself, but I don't think
that Tiger Woods' primary motivation on the course is beating his last score.
Beating another person is more deeply rooted in the human psyche.

Now, there are really only two paths to growth for a company: grow the market,
or take share from your competitors. Even growing the market is normally in
some sense taking business from other players in your segment. For example, if
you grow a music business some of that is probably going to eat into other
forms of entertainment. Witness the rise of the video games industry. And in
many cases, the path to expanding the market is unclear or you do not have the
skill to execute it, so the only thing left is to take business away from your
competitors.

It's _possible_ you could do that while still bearing them personal good-will.
But I suspect that the human brain is going to experience a lot of cognitive
dissonance in trying to say that on the one hand you like the people but on
the other hand you're fine with hurting them or even putting them out of
business. This is probably true even with the rationalization that you're
doing what's best for the customer (which is not always true).

IMO you have a real problem when your employees stop _emotionally_ disliking
your competitors on average. That means that their products are so much better
than yours that they overcome the natural distaste for "the enemy" or, even
more reptilian, "the man who wants to eat the food that I want to eat."
(That's why I think Google doesn't have much hope in the social space, because
internally there's very little ill-will towards Facebook or Twitter. Apple is
more of a contest.)

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JakeyWakey
I dont hate my competitors, without them it'd be like running a race all
alone. You dont know if your running too fast or too slow cause you have
nobody to compare yourself to, its just you running down the track by your
lonesome.

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known
Does Microsoft hate competitors? Yes.

~~~
rianjs
Microsoft is not a monolithic entity. Might one of their famous executives
hate certain competitors? Yes. Do their employees, on the whole, hate the
competitors that exist in their myriad markets? Probably not.

So if Steve Ballmer = Microsoft, then sure, Microsoft hates their competitors.
But if not, then no, they don't.

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hotmind
I like my competitors. I don't think about them much (weird, and potentially
dangerous, I know), and I would never link to them, but I do respect them.

I'm currently looking for a blue ocean strategy that will erase any
competition, but regardless, I hope we all eat well.

