Ask HN: How do you build a MVP when there already is established competitors? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you build a MVP when there already is established competitors?

I started working on a MVP for some marketing tool a few weeks ago.

I've found maybe two or three competitors, and I realize that they just have so many features that I don't have and that I'll realistically never have the time to make them in the next few months.

I'm already trying to do just ONE thing well, and they seem to do it so much better, on top of X other things.

At what point do you decide that it's good enough to actually ship?

Can price and simplicity be enough of a selling point?(and in my case it's "simple" because there just isn't enough features for it to be complex lol)

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You should think about why you're building the software.

If there are other established companies with many customers, you feel their offerings aren't incomplete or have bad UI/UX, and aren't too expensive then be prepared for it to fail as a business. However if you want to do it because you enjoy the work and don't care about making money then go for it. Another thing you think about for making this MVP is to ensure you have proper users otherwise you'll have no "expertise" to evaluate what you built.

It's a lot of work to really understand how people see products, you really have to put an ear to the ground or talk to people.

You might look at something and say "that really sucks" but users are satisfied or vice versa a competitor might look tough to you but customers really hate it and wish they had a choice.

I've been told by VC's and bizdev types that it's a lonely place to have a product that is unlike anything on the market, you might have a hard time proving a market for your product exists. If you have competitors than you know the market exists and it could be better to fight for 1/5 of a large pie than 100% of nothing.

You really do want to build one U.S.P. (unique selling point) into your product, even if it is kinda lame, because you'll have a pat answer for the question of "how is this better than X?"

I guess at first it was because I wanted to fix one particular problem at my company, that they previously had to hire a freelancer for, before having to maintain an in house tool for it.

My thinking was like: my bosses aren't dumb enough to waste thousands of dollars/man hours on something that a 20-100$ monthly subscription could fix, there must be no suitable solution, there is obviously a market for this.

(Turns out they maybe are dumb enough.)

Making money would be one of my goals yeah.

If I make it free I'm sure to have users, starting with my employer. I'm not sure about the numbers of features/hours I'd have to invest to start to reasonably charge people, unless I make it extremelyyyy cheap.

"I'm already trying to do just ONE thing well, and they seem to do it so much better, on top of X other things."

If this was the situation, why bother continuing?

If you can do ONE thing to the same level as your competitors, and then price lower because you don't have all the extras, then maybe...but, if you cannot even match their core capability...

I mean I may be able to bring to the same level, it's just that at my current rate of progress it would take like 6 months.

Simple is good but you’ll need to find very specific customers that are just trying to solve one problem or customers that are super early in their needs

You don't. You find an uncontested niche.

I'm not sure there is one uncontested niche on earth for more than a few days at a time unless there is no money to be made or it's impossible to build a solution.

You need to define your own niche

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