Hacker News Reader

Read 'The lean startup' - it has shaped the way I think about building products!

With big companies with large budgets bulldozing smaller players - any advice on finding a niche that is worth pursuing?

View on HN

I've talked about this in a couple of recent interviews, and if you can't find one, I'll try to find you the link. This question about what it's like when you're in a platform war and the platforms are like these massive bulldozers is kind of an old bit of entrepreneurial lore that, at least when I first came to Silicon Valley, I was taught many years ago. We haven't had a bona fide platform war in a while, so I think some of that lore has passed out of common memory. Generally speaking, what you want to do is what's called a market resegmentation, where you find some section of the market that the bulldozers are not going to pass over, or where you control the customer because they are loyal to you and you can play the platforms off each other.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com