Approached by competitor | Hacker News Reader

Approached by competitor

discuss.joelonsoftware.com

40 pointsmattjung13 comments

"There are tons of competitors, and one of the larger ones just sent me an email saying they'd like to talk and see if there is a way to work together. I think what that means is I'm stealing sales and ranked #1 for the keyword they probably want. A VC firm that invested heavily in them also called a few months back and wants to talk (I said no thanks)."

Paranoid much ?

Really if every approach is rebuffed like that how will you respond to the one that would have lead to either some great deal or an exit ?

The success of your business depends in a large degree on your communication skills, if you behave like a hermit towards the groups that are the most likely sources of 'big deals' then you have to really consider the value of what you've just lost. Especially if you describe yourself as the smallest fish in the pond. They're approaching you, that means you hold the cards, theirs are on the table. Go there and listen.

Nobody ever died communicating with a competitor or one of their VCs, if your main worry is some silly keyword ranking (as if that's the only way to build a business) then simply don't give away anything related to that.

Jesus, what's the big deal? Just go and talk to them. Don't give away any sensitive information, of course, but you can learn as much, if not more, in an informal chat, as they can. People really shouldn't be so afraid of talking to competitors.

Competitors are just other entrepreneurs who are trying to solve the same problem as you. You should be on good terms, not paranoid.

I'm very trusting, as are lot's of entrepreneurs. I've met quite a few sharks though.

I remember one young entrepreneur demoing his wares to a group of us, and this a-hole said "Wow, that's a great idea. We are going to do that! I'm going to ring X-famous-person who would love this now!". This was a successful, internationally known entrepreneur with huge resources behind him. Everyone in the room was just shocked. And he was serious, and didn't even offer the entrepreneur anything, not even a job.

Presumably, this was something that was visible on the demoer's website anyway, so the thief could have taken it from there anyway, no?

If he went and demoed his private, unreleased product to a bunch of potential competitors, then I'd say that's taking trust a bit too far.

He actually had no website - just really cool technology - augmented reality better than what I have seen but a few years ago!

The meeting was actually organised by the city to set up a cluster for our industry, obviously nothing came of it after that debacle!

Yeah, that happens. That's what patents are for. Or NDA agreements. I know hackers do not like dealing with legal stuff but it is necessary and helpful sometimes.

It is much better to set up legal rights through a patent or an agreement than to rely on strangers to follow some vague business ethics code. Many successful businessmen became successful because they broke such codes.

Indeed. I also liked the link to the Audion story that was in one of the comments. That was quite a sobering read.

The big deal is that you can get sucked into all kinds of issues, and meeting with competitors can distract you from your main business. If you don't want to sell, you shouldn't go. If you might sell, you better have the amount of cash you'd demand in mind before you go and be ready to walk away. Those are the only reasons I can see for bothering to meet.

I elaborated further in a comment on the original thread.

I agree. It seems far more straightforward to talk to those guys than to do a bunch of guessing as to what they want and write a post on joelonsoftware asking for advice.

If you are sane normal adult you should be able to talk to someone without giving out any secrets.

I think this is one of those posts where the author is not really looking for advice but secretly bragging. "Look at me I am so successful I have my much larger competitor begging to talk to me and I just told them to f off." Well there is nothing wrong with a little bragging if you have achieved something significant, but then just be honest and brag, don't couch it into a question.

Most businesses are not zero-games. You're missing out, if you think it is.

Do you mean zero-sum games? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum

Although, the zero-game also exists (I had no idea): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_game

I thought it was the same, but reading the Wikipedia article, it appears that zero-game is something slightly different.

I did mean zero-sum game.

You can never be too thin, too rich, or too knowledgeable about your market. An excellent data collection opportunity you don't normally have has fallen into your lap. Why wouldn't you take advantage of it?

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