

Ask HN: If someone else is "doing it", is that a reason not to compete? - potatofish

I think just about any idea has been tried to one degree these days. I am working on something that on paper is being done by a number of firms. The thing is I have a different angle on several levels for how it can be better and more competitive. But I am concerned about trying to convince investors of this. Given that Facebook came along after MySpace, I'd like to think there is no reason not to pursue something that's "been done" or "being done". I mean, after all there was IBM before there was Microsoft, and there was Microsoft before there was Google.<p>But I guess I would like to hear thoughts on this. And now, what I'm doing is not on the scale of those companies, but I don't think that matters to the discussion.
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patio11
No. They're not doing it the same way, for the same people, with the same
marketing slant, etc etc. More broadly, competitors are great -- they provide
validation that people will pay for your service, and every day they're in
business they create folks who are let down by their inadequate and inferior
offerings and who wish nothing more than to jump to your new hotness. (I'm not
sure how much I believe that last bit.)

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exline
Competition is a good thing. It proves there is a market for the product. If
the competition is big, they are doing part of your marketing for you, letting
people know they have a problem that needs solving. You can also use their
product as a way to position your own product. There are some markets that are
saturated and difficult to stand out, but it sounds this may not be the case.

The only thing that worries me in your post is "But I am concerned about
trying to convince investors of this." I've chased funding before and its not
a fun position to be in. Better to boot strap and have total control. In most
cases you are going to need a product, active customers and some revenue to
get a foot in the door for investors and even then, the odds are not in your
favor.

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danielharan
Facebook came after MySpace and Friendster, Google had entrenched competition.
If investors don't get that, I wouldn't want them on my board.

Before starting I made a list of all my potential competitors. Then I spent
some money getting industry data, and found out none of them actually had
traction with bigger companies.

And then I changed products, twice, each time redefining who the competition
was. BI? Recommendation engine? Advertising optimization platform? Recoset
could end up as any of these, depending on customer validation.

Finally, every week there's a new potential competitor announced. I don't
care: my focus isn't on winning against anyone else, it's making sure I have a
viable business model.

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bradleyland
There is very little in the world that is "new". Most of what is purported as
new is really an old idea that has been re-worked in to a new medium, or an
amalgamation of old ideas. _This is not a bad thing._ Henry Ford may have
modernized automobile production, but he wasn't the last guy to start a car
manufacturer. Many have come and gone since.

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crikli
Three points:

1) If someone else is doing it that's good, in fact _preferable._ You are
probably not the only person to have had a given idea, ergo if someone else is
making money at it you probably can too.

2) Focus on the building core of the product. Don't worry about the attendant
features, just...distill your idea down to its barest essence and start with
that. Forget scalability, fee structuring, user account management...just put
all that stuff on a shelf for now. Get a proof of concept working. Have other
people look at it. Float it to your friends here at HN.

3) Think about how much you need to make? You don't need to be "the next XXX"
to have a lot of fun and make great money. A million in revenue isn't worth
any of the company's you mentioned attention (well, maybe MySpace), but it's a
big deal to a tiny company.

This book here mentions a lot of what I'm saying:
[http://www.amazon.com/Business-Software-Manager-
Programmer-E...](http://www.amazon.com/Business-Software-Manager-Programmer-
Entrepreneur/dp/074321580X)

It's well worth the money.

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davcro
No. The internet is a big place and there is room for multiple competitors. If
someone else is "doing it," than the idea has been proven to be lucrative.

Regarding investors, if this is a web app, IMO, you should have an alpha
version with good traction before raising money.

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thecircusb0y
Don't ever doubt yourself and your ideas. You will fail if you don't believe
in what you're doing. You need to convince investors of your passion and
conviction towards your ideas. They need to believe in you, but first, you
need to believe in yourself and your capabilities and your own ideas. Did GM
hesitate to compete with Ford? Did Pepsi hesitate to compete with Coke? Did
LSD hesitate to... well you get my point.

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_delirium
Somewhat bucking the trend, I'd say it's a reason to at least _consider_ what
effects the existing competition has. May not be a reason to abandon it, but
if, for example, you were considering offering freemium webmail, it'd be worth
considering to what extent existing offerings like Gmail and Hotmail affect
the landscape. Do they put so much downward pressure on prices that you can't
realistically hope to charge enough to be profitable? Is there scope for
offering better enough services, to at least some non-zero-sized niche of
potential customers, to overcome that? Etc. I think you definitely can't
assume they don't exist: if you just make a Gmail, even a somewhat better
Gmail, you will have a lot of trouble competing with Google on Google's terms,
and against their cash pile.

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milkshakes
these might help, from last week:

<http://cdixon.org/2010/06/26/competition-is-overrated/>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1463677>

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coderdude
You'll end up finding that a lot of your competitors are incompetent, or don't
have the same ability to execute your idea quite like you can. In most cases I
would say don't let competition discourage you. Let them show you what _not_
to do.

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hazmattron
Expanding on this, the fact that they've done it before is actually an
advantage to you: now you know exactly what you can do to make it better.
Improvement can always be made.

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ekanes
Speaking simply and not going into every possible nuance... someone else doing
the same thing is practically not data at all. If they're _succeeding_ , that
means you should do it. If they're _failing_ , maybe you shouldn't.

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uast23
Probably this is becoming most clichéd question :)

Generating a totally unique idea and selling it to people will probably get
you another "Apple"(I don't mean it literally). But till the time it does not
happen, there is nothing wrong with working on something which is shared by
someone else too, its just that yours should be better than others and should
have enough differentiators to "rock". I am not going to quote "Google",
"Facebook" et al. here again because everyone already knows the story.

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nostrademons
Depends whether you think you can do it "better", for some segment of the
market.

There's no point in competing if you're just going to do the same thing as the
entrenched competitor, but worse. Why would someone use your product?

There's a big reason to compete if you can do what someone's already doing,
but better. And it doesn't have to be better for everyone. It just has to be
better for some population of existing users that are currently dissatisfied
with their existing experience.

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lleger
If entrepreneurs never pursued their dream just because someone else had
already done it, we wouldn't have some of the most important innovations. Some
of the greatest companies grew not out of a need for something that didn't
exist, but out of a need to do it better. If you have an idea and can execute
it better, or in a new, needed way, then you should absolutely do it. Pursue
it with everything you have. You're an entrepreneur, after all.

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DenisM
Ask not if there are competitors, ask if there is a body dissatisfied users.

Such body may exist due to lack of competition or due to it's inferior quality
or due to their different focus but that's tactics and only helpful in
defining exact places to focus on, the strategic question you shoul care about
- are there people with unsatisfied need, and how can find them?

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wan23
Maybe. Depends on if you can do something different and gain some users that
they don't have, or if you can do something better and take some users from
your competitor. For the second option, you can take users they already have
or users they would have gotten.

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stevederico
You should go out there and compete. You could say myspace was "doing" what
facebook does. Stay focused on your goal and build on your competitive
advantage. Don't get scared out of the market. Competition only invites
innovation and a healthy challenge.

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instakill
You shouldn't look at it this way. Rather look at it like this: If there is
competition, it means that there's a market. If there's a lot of competition
then the market is healthy.

As long as you don't just add incremental changes, go for it.

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johnl
There are lots and lots of hotels in any city that serve different niches of
the market. Not just one. Some marketing analysis might reveal niches that can
be exploited cheaply by you.

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zzzmarcus
Yes. If someone else is doing it, don't bother.

Does that sound right to you? No? Well... :)

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potatofish
Would just like to thank all for the positive comments. Upward and onward!

