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Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

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Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#11

Post by soneca »

Not a stupid question at all!

First, forget about being "branded", "labeled", "be seen as", etc. These things are totally irrelevant for your business success.

Now, I would keep building on your current product, without radical pivots. But would not keep building the exact same product. A company with 10,000 paying customers and millions in financing will most certainly alienate some segment of their customers. While this might be rational for them from a cost/benefit point of view, it might be rational for you to target that exact segment they are alienating and build a successful and very profitable bootstrapped business.

If you need some help figuring out what segments they are alienating and would be a better target for you, email me (email on my profile). I have good experience in this kind of strategic analysis.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#12

Post by itamarst »

One thing to keep in mind:

The problem with VC-funded competitors is that they can afford to lose money on every customer and live off investor money (for a while, anyway). You can't afford that.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, especially if you can do it in market they're not actually doing anything about. Just something to keep in mind.

Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#14

Post by adnanh »

Gitlab and GitHub tackle same issues and have the same market. As someone said, if you are not violating copyright or patent law, you're good. Ideas are worthless, it's the execution part that matters... If you are better at it you'll win. If the market is big enough for both of you, you won't have problems. Imagine if McDonalds didn't start when they saw KFC was already into fast food business? Or burger king, or if we only had one pizza business. Competition pushes companies forward, having a monopoly is only good for the business, not the users.

Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#15

Post by wj »

dolevyao wrote: post #5
walterbell wrote: post #3

Are there geographical differences in customer requirements that would allow you to differentiate your solution based on your local market knowledge? The existence of the US company reduces your market risk. If you have a handle on technical execution, then technical risk is also low. That leaves sales and scaling. If you can grow quickly in the European market, you could even be acquired by the US company for custom…

That's a good point, thank you for the explanation. I suspect customer requirements will be very, very similar, so don't think there is much scope for product differentiation. I now really do think this will be a "sell fast and scale fast" play on our end, tech execution should not be an issue.

There is always some scope for product differentiation and a lot of scope for marketing differentiation. There are hundred(s) of different CRM products on the market and some differentiate themselves on features (specific features/workflows for particular industries) and some trumpet their lack of features as the "simple crm" or "lightweight crm".

Another example is that there are dozens of customer service software products across all price ranges and target business sizes.

Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#16

Post by telebone_man »

You haven't mentioned this as an option - but food for thought. Have you considered some kind of partnership? Your competitor may have plans for Europe, in the future, and buying you out may save them hassle later on.

Furthermore, if you have something they don't have in terms of feature set or can demonstrate an ability to innovate they could make a job for you. Perhaps, 'Head of EU xxx'.

Re: Ask HN: Found an identical product to mine. Should I double down or refocus?

#17

Post by iDemonix »

I've freelanced on projects before where this has happened. It's just validation of the idea.

In my, admittedly limited, experience, when a project carries on regardless, usually it means the project managers can use weaknesses of the new competitor to further improve their product.

In my one experience where they canned the project as someone had already beaten them, I remember noticing some time after that the competition were no longer operating.

On a side note, I'm working on some smaller scale SaaS side project pieces, I have no idea if I have any skills that could be of use but let me know if some assistance could help you out.

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