You need to cater to a real need if you want to be successful.
Why do you feel the world needs an alternative?
What problem would your product solve (that facebook isn't already solving)?
Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#12If you were Mark Zuckerberg asking HN "Compete with MySpace?" a few years ago, you'd likely get the same advice you'll get now: they're way out in front of you and you'll have a much better shot at success if you pick a different niche. The Bad News: You'll almost certainly fail if you try to take on Facebook. The Good News: If you succeed, you'll almost certainly be a billionaire. If you wanted to do this, I'd recom…
Bad advice. If your goal is money, just spend your money on powerball tickets since your chances are much, much greater. If you do what you love because you're passionate about it, and you're exceptionally talented at what you're doing, rich is a natural byproduct.
You can be both passionate and exceptionally talented, and utterly broke, quite easily.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#13You should go for it if you can offer a compelling feature that facebook lacks. (I mean really really compelling).
I think the advice about going at it obliquely is only necessary if you're creating a straight up clone, this targeting a niche thing is only about marketing, but if you can offer something better, I think you'll find many early adopters.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#14If you were Mark Zuckerberg asking HN "Compete with MySpace?" a few years ago, you'd likely get the same advice you'll get now: they're way out in front of you and you'll have a much better shot at success if you pick a different niche. The Bad News: You'll almost certainly fail if you try to take on Facebook. The Good News: If you succeed, you'll almost certainly be a billionaire. If you wanted to do this, I'd recom…
Zuck did pick a different niche--Ivy league students (and then college students in general).
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#15I want a social place but not to share pics with my family and friends. I want to share knowledge and expertise. I want to ask questions, get answers, share code, show off my projects, learn from the experts, chat with colleagues, network and socialize.
Start with a facebook clon for hackers, then, like reddit, expand to all possible interests. Let people create their groups of interest and then grow, grow like weed.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#16Figure out why people use Facebook, and then do a better job at it than Facebook is.
Presumptions: Facebook does not actually understand its own audience and why people use the site. Also, I presume you will figure out what "better" really means for your audience and not just over-engineer something.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#17You have to come at them obliquely. If you set out to build a better social networking site for everybody you'll fail, because they have more resources and more expertise. Instead, try to figure out a niche that they're failing at - either an activity or a population of users - and that can be expanded into a full social networking site as it grows. Twitter's attempting to do this with status messages, Zynga with cas…
> for everbody
This is key. It's arguable that Facebook is successful because it was exclusive to a smaller niche (college students) when it was starting out.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#18Remember when a lot of people used to think that the blue "e" icon is the internet, and "Microsoft" is "Word"?
Probably now many Facebook users think Facebook is the internet. Good luck!
What I mean is: they don't use Facebook because they think Facebook is so great, they use it because their friends use it (like email - it is just a way to send each other messages). They probably never questioned why they use it. Therefore it would likely be hard to make them switch to something else.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#19You have to come at them obliquely. If you set out to build a better social networking site for everybody you'll fail, because they have more resources and more expertise. Instead, try to figure out a niche that they're failing at - either an activity or a population of users - and that can be expanded into a full social networking site as it grows. Twitter's attempting to do this with status messages, Zynga with cas…
> for everbody This is key. It's arguable that Facebook is successful because it was exclusive to a smaller niche (college students) when it was starting out.
they also provided a better product than the alternatives at the time. Now that facebook is out there, you can't release a facebook clone and not get laughed at. You have to innovate.
Re: Ask HN: Compete with Facebook?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> for everbody This is key. It's arguable that Facebook is successful because it was exclusive to a smaller niche (college students) when it was starting out.
they also provided a better product than the alternatives at the time. Now that facebook is out there, you can't release a facebook clone and not get laughed at. You have to innovate.
Absolutely, but my point is that Facebook didn't start out to be a MySpace killer. It was started as a niche product that grew into a MySpace killer.