Ask HN: Worth doing a startup in a space saturated with other new startups? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Worth doing a startup in a space saturated with other new startups?

11 pointsiJohnPaul18 comments

The space in particular is improving language learning with AI. I see 1 or 2 new startups everyday! Not sure what to make of this level of competition. Is it worth entering a market like this and if so any particular things needed to succeed?

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Can you get customers? If so, then enter the market. The technology is irrelevant; what matters is how you acquire customers, paying or not.

If someone is not paying, they are not a customer.

Having lots of non-paying users is a viable approach if your customers will pay for their data, e.g. Google, Facebook, Goodreads, etc.

If nobody is willing to pay, there’s no business value being created.

I don't think the game is in data. Facebook has so many eyeballs that it's basically the cheapest place to buy ads. They give me mostly irrelevant ads, but there's so many that I have bought something off there.

Goodreads's purpose is to encourage people to read more books, or get excited to buy books they don't read, which benefits the world's largest bookstore, Amazon.

Google doesn't need data to sell you something. It just sells you whatever you type in the box.

not raw data but AI insights into data. businesses don't buy ads on FB and G they buy AI optimized targeting driven by data.

I am a language learning nerd, and I have been down the rabbit hole. Let me tell you that the most popular tool for serious language learners is Anki because of the spaced repetition. If you pursue a startup in the space, I highly recommend incoporating spaced repetition.

Another question to ponder: Who is the audience and what value will they get from learning a language. For example, the audience could be people immigrating to America for college. That is a group of people who have a strong need to learn English.

Are you learning German by any chance? I'm currently finishing development of spaced repetition, llm powered app for learning German vocabulary and I'm looking for feedback and early access users.

Okay I see, will look more into this and see how I can incorporate it

It's always worth entering a market if you have an edge or idea that nobody else has, and you think the market would utilize it. That's sort of the point of startups :)

Disclaimer: I actually worked for (and helped found) a company that used AI tools as a complimentary piece of the language learning process. The company closed doors early last year. Happy to discuss further if you'd like - our approach was quite radical in nature but the progress our students made was incredible.

Yeah makes sense. Yeah, would love to have a chat, anyway I can reach out to you?

Pros: - markets validated

- investors may see more options for acquisition exits

- if in a crowded space you still see a gap it's likely real

Cons: - table stakes to reach parity with existing solutions may be higher

- existing entrants may be quick to replicate your killer feature

- with more noise demands more marketing/differentiation/ads/baked-in virality

I'm sure you've already thought of all that jazz. One idea is, if you can find any online communities which overlap with your target demographic maybe develop a survey (crude mockups could be even better in the survey) and ask if that feature set would entice them to switch from their current solution.

Another approach is to use the producthunt "coming soon" with decent mockups / landing page to gauge interest?

Maybe find a content creator that specializes in this space and propose a interview style video where you open the book and bounce ideas for what's missing in the market and what your solution would be. This would likely be the most fruitful move but you'd be putting it all out there which is the only way to make this type of video work for both parties.

Lastly, YC never seems worried about funding startups in a crowded space especially if the market doesn't seem too matured as there's still time for a new entrant to "get it right".

Good luck!

Are you sure that language learning itself is actually a big enough market to contain so many competitors? My guess, coming from personal experience with this market, is not really. Far fewer people want to learn foreign languages than is popularly assumed online, and even when they do, it’s almost always English for business reasons.

So if you’re dead set on entering this space, I would focus on business-case uses for learning English.

Arabic is popular for business reasons and religious reasons.

Mandarin is popular for business reasons too.

I think a lot of it is local reasons too - foreigners in Thailand who learn Thai.

Sure but these markets are orders of magnitude smaller than English learning.

Yes it can be worth it. It might actually be preferable in a lot of cases. Just keep in mind you might be running a different kind of business than you expected if you’re a technical person who want’s to build something technical. It’s quite likely tech will be less important/table stakes and you’ll be pushing harder on sales and marketing and innovating there instead.

no the world does not need another "AI" startup. save your money

Here's a list of ways you might be able to differentiate.

Personalized Learning Paths

Gamified Learning Experience

Conversational AI

Multi-Sensory Learning

Cultural Immersion

Community Interaction

Speech Recognition Technology

Offline Learning Support

Progressive Difficulty

Professional Tutoring

Interactive Audio Lessons

Instant Translations

Augmented Reality (AR) Integration

Synchronization Across Devices

Content Creation Platform

Voice and Video Chat Practice

Contextual Learning

Offline Translation Assistance

Professional Certification

GPT answer. Stop that.

I was trying to help the person. too me it sounds kind of like dick to say you need differentiation for your offering go ask GPT for a list of ways to differentiate. I probably should have had it narrow it down to 3 to 5.

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