Ask HN: A stealth project disrupted | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: A stealth project disrupted

6 pointskhangtoh10 comments

Warning: Sorry that this is a kinda long post, but I really need some advice on my next steps from follow Hackers.

2 Months back, I had a really brilliant idea. And I'm sure every entrepreneur have their own virtual bucket they use to store all their potential ideas. You would then rank those ideas based on several factors, ie, complexity, revenue model, type of market, etc. And surely, the algorithm is unique to each owns, since everyone has different situation's and priorities. To make the long story short, this idea that I had, was ranked number one on my list of ideas to pursue. It has repeatability being said, alot, that an idea is nothing and its the execution that counts AND there is probably someone else out there who has the same idea OR is probably doing it right now.

Well that happens to be damn true. Yesterday, I read on Techcrunch about a startup that has been around since 2005 and is doing something very similar to my idea.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/14/trackvia-raises-series-a-for-point-and-click-databases/ Trackvia provides software as a service for transforming ordinary spreadsheets into versatile databases.

In short, my idea has something to do with spreadsheets and is to a certain extend, similar to Trackvia but I strongly believe that my model will appeal more to the target users. Of course my targeted users are closely similar to TrackVia's - Small and Medium Businesses.

So what should I do now? Keep on pursuing this idea of my knowing that there is another well-funded startup that has a 2 year head start ahead of me? Drop the idea, and think about the second on my list?

This is awesome news. Read this:

http://www.ericsink.com/Choose_Your_Competition.html

The big problem with avoiding competition is that you are also avoiding customers. The existence of a competitor indicates the existence of paying customers. If you can't find anyone who is making money with your idea, you really need to wonder if there is any money to be made there at all.

Now you're primed to understand me when I say: Don't give up yet. This startup is doing valuable research for you, and it isn't costing you a dime. See if you can figure out if they're making any money. See if you can find some of their customers and ask them what they think of the product. Try the product. Take their product to one of your potential customers, demo it to them, and see if they like it or not -- think of it as a prototype for your own product, except that all it cost you to develop is the cost of buying a copy from your competitor.

If, perchance, the existing startup has uncovered a huge market for this kind of product, chances are they can't capture the whole market. You can grab some of it. If their product rocks and has a plugin architecture, sell a handy plugin and expand from there. If their product sucks for a certain subset of the market, build your own version. If their product just plain sucks, and they have a market anyway, take them on -- there's gold in them thar hills!

More likely, there is no market and this startup will obligingly discover this for you by building a decent product and then failing anyway. You will learn from their failure, while spending nothing! And they have a three-year head start on their failure, so you might not have to wait too long!

I haven't said anything about the idea, and I don't have time to research it... but based on the one-sentence pitch I urge you to read this and come to terms with it before you proceed:

http://neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2003/09/29/5458....

It's hard to believe how true that cartoon is until you've lived it. So be careful, or your customer support costs will eat your business alive.

Every month or so, a comment comes up on hn that is so good it has to become bulletin board material. This is one.

We often get so bogged down in the code, we forget to use common sense. This post, especially the "perchance" paragraph is loaded with options to "find a way". Thanks, mechanical_fish!

mechanical_fish, that is one awesome advice! thanks!

"So what should I do now? Keep on pursuing this idea of my knowing that there is another well-funded startup that has a 2 year head start ahead of me? Drop the idea, and think about the second on my list?"

That depends. Is it a big market? Every Coke has a Pepsi, you know and every Nike has a Rebock and Adidas, a New Balance, and ... you get the idea.

You just have to be sure that you can find a way to get a piece of that pie. Is there a certain niche you can target? Are you really able to do something at least comparable to the others, or even better?

You may need a team or to find your own funding to compete.

And I wish you the best of luck!

There is more than one competitor (scroll down to the bottom of the article you linked and you can see a few more).

On one hand, it's validation that it's a good idea. On the other, you have to be convinced that your execution can be better.

Are you are referring to Quickbase? Thanks for bringing that up.

Hmm. No. I'm referring to Blist and DabbleDB (which are linked at the bottom of the article you posted).

My random thoughts:

Many people talk about "first mover advantage", although often times large companies like Microsoft, Google, etc., prove that there is a larger argument for second or third (or n) mover advantage.

Not to be too harsh, but I doubt many (if any) of us here have ever had a truly unique idea. The fact that somebody else noticed the same hole in the market and attempted to architect a way to fill it is no more noteworthy than the sun rising. My personal opinion is that in most cases this neither validates or nullifies YOUR idea, it is simply one of many variables to take into consideration.

It is very important to be aware of and monitor your competitors in any market. However, if you create a better solution, their existence will be less than a footnote to you. Keep an eye on your competitors, but don't obsess over watching them and worrying when they (or you) solve a particular part of the puzzle differently.

My advice: go and build your solution IF you think it is whole and complete and solves a compelling and valuable problem.

If your entire user market is worth only $5M (and I'm not saying that it is), it doesn't really matter if there are 1 or 100 competitors, NOBODY will make any money anyway :)

All you need is paying customers, don't worry about competition.

Also, using your current idea, think about a generalized version of your idea or one that focuses, say only on the financial vertical.

Keep going. Competition only proves to validate the worthiness of the idea. Is there only one car manufacturer? Telephone utility? Clothing Store?

Of course not.

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