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Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

I agree in general (so many people, myself included, avoid finding competitors because it's like asking for bad news.)

That being said, it shouldn't take 20-30 hours. If you're looking for it but can't find it, there's something missing with the existing companies (execution, marketing, etc).

But make sure you know everything. Literally nothing kills a pitch or talk quite like not being able to answer the question "So it's like ____?", even if the mentioned startup turns out to be only tangentially related.

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To understand any given market space, even the suggested 20-30 hours is far less than enough. Unless after several hours of searching, no competition is found to begin with.

If someone is unwilling to perform a thorough search for competition, there is a good chance that the person does not yet understand the problem he is solving or has a wrong idea about what the real problem is.

Part of the reason why it takes long to understand competitive landscape is that search engines are still not perfect, and companies often do not do a good job of explaining on their websites what exactly they do.

If a company exists that is solving the problem and yet you cannot find it, you may call it a problem with their execution, or a problem that you may soon have too -- discoverability/SEO and gaining traction.

They say, ideas are dime a dozen. My understanding is that ideas are dime a dozen only before you apply the filters - product-market fit, competition analysis, etc. If something passes through and correctly so, it is worth a lot more. I bet investors die to see something that has actually passed through.

One of the points raised in the article is to understand why you can't immediately find a good competitor. 20-30 hours of search helps you cover your bases by finding the languishing or dead competitors; IMO learning what they have done to die out helps you avoid those pitfalls in the future. This could be part of your point about "knowing everything". Being prepared is paramount.

I think that sometimes you have to find out what are specific terms used in that field, it might not be initially obvious for a new comer in a field.

Definitely, it's not always easy knowing what to search for and it can take awhile to narrow that down.

Right, I had a hard time figuring out exactly how long to put there time-wise. I think the amount of time you put in actually looking into what they're doing (figuring out what they're doing well, not well, their traction) can vary it quite a bit.

You're right about the pitch-killing. A few times I've seen investors pull out their iPad during a pitch and google potential competitors. Then they ask the entrepreneur about them if they weren't included.

I think it's fair though to spend 20-30 hours deeply analyzing the competition. What was their go-to market, their pricing structures, key focus, team size/background, economics, channels, partnerships, stated reasons for failing, what were they hiring for, etc. etc. Those all holistically give you a great view into lots of learning.

I have done this type of research recently and I can say that it helps immensely when you invariably get the "So it's like ___?" question. :) It really forces you to think about how you are going to answer that question ahead of time.

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