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Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#21

Post by esessoms »

OpenWebU wrote: post #18

More funding does not mean they can execute. I learned that lesson at Oracle, where a team 5x larger and in competition with mine claimed they could do everything and the kitchen sink. But because they could not focus, their developers got new directives every week their code was very buggy. My team's code was focused but it worked and we had better credibility with the salespeople and customers. If you make noise, y…

I hate to be a ditto-head, but I couldn't agree more. If they have bigger teams and more money, that almost always means you have the advantage. The only way you can lose is if you panic and make bad decisions. Plan your climb and climb your plan.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#23

Post by thaumaturgy »

Just concentrate on your product.

It's fine to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, but you want to use that as a source of ideas and inspiration, not as a way to defeat yourself before you're even out of the gate. The competitors may not be able to release as early or often. Everything might fall through for them. Or, maybe, they'll be successful, and you'll be successful, because there's room in the market for more than one company.

You shouldn't be afraid of competition, you should embrace it as an opportunity to be challenged to produce an even better product than you would have.

So, I say just focus on your product. Make it the best, most mold-shattering product you can. If you can do that, and keep on doing that, then at the very least your potential competitors are going to have to spend a lot of energy just trying to keep up with you.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#24

Post by johnm »

There are two kinds of companies:

The first defines themselves in terms of their (perceived) competition. A great example of this has been Sun. McNealy spouted out incessantly against Microsoft even though Sun's actual primary competitors were IBM and HP (while the true threat was the systemic commodification brought on by PCs and F/OSS).

The second defines themselves by the value that they actually deliver to their customers. Craigslist is a poster child for this in the online space.

In terms of the market perception, you should think a bit about who's going to be perceived as the driver/leader of your market and who's going to be perceived as the "me too" player.

In terms of market validation, it's almost always a good thing that you have some competition. For Krugle, we nominally have a fair number of competitors on the surface (including Google) but our actual product blows them away.

In terms of war chests (money), that's an open question. It depends on how creative you can be, how stupid (or not) they are because they have money, whether or not they can actually use the money to their advantage, etc.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#25

Post by kirubakaran »

I couldn't find a link for you online but do you remember the story about how the competitors of Feynman's plated pen company were intimidated? They thought 'omg an american company would be having millions of dollars in funding and army of PhDs in lab coats' So they shut their company down. The company Feynman worked for actually had like $15 in funding or something like that.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#27

Post by antiismist »

kirubakaran wrote: post #25

I couldn't find a link for you online but do you remember the story about how the competitors of Feynman's plated pen company were intimidated? They thought ' omg an american company would be having millions of dollars in funding and army of PhDs in lab coats ' So they shut their company down. The company Feynman worked for actually had like $15 in funding or something like that.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20232/-surely-youre-joking-Mr-feyn...

on page 22. Surprisingly relevant to this discussion.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#28

Post by radley »

Do what you can to launch ASAP. Then when your competitors launch, there's a greater chance that any write-ups on them will be bound to include your product - which gives you more publicity.

You're also smaller and more nimble - teams mean meetings which KILLS productivity. So don't fret. Just iterate.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#29

Post by adammichaelc »

Who cares? That's my first thought. If you don't have competitors, then your idea probably wasn't that good.

That being said, if your idea depends on a network effect (like Amazon), then you've got a bunch of other problems and you should read this: http://www.changethis.com/8.StrategyLetter.

If you're building a company where you charge a price and bring in revenues directly from your customers, and you don't have the need of a network effect, then you will have competition throughout your life. But don't worry, they will just keep you on your toes and help you to produce the best thing possible.

Re: Ask YC: What to do when the competition surfaces?

#30

Post by kirubakaran »

antiismist wrote: post #27
kirubakaran wrote: post #25

I couldn't find a link for you online but do you remember the story about how the competitors of Feynman's plated pen company were intimidated? They thought ' omg an american company would be having millions of dollars in funding and army of PhDs in lab coats ' So they shut their company down. The company Feynman worked for actually had like $15 in funding or something like that.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20232/-surely-youre-joking-Mr-feyn... on page 22. Surprisingly relevant to this discussion.

Thanks!
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