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Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

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Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#2
I'm thinking about the YC question, "why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? My partner and I could duplicate any given YC company, feature-for-feature, quickly. So, to first order, the answer to this question is, "It's not hard."

But just duplicating can't be the real worry here. Is the underlying question, "Why won't your competitors quickly duplicate what you're building?"

Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#4
post #2

I'm thinking about the YC question, "why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? My partner and I could duplicate any given YC company, feature-for-feature, quickly. So, to first order, the answer to this question is, "It's not hard." But just duplicating can't be the real worry here. Is the underlying question, "Why won't your competitors quickly duplicate what you're building?"

It's hard to get users, particularly if you are not the first in a given area.

Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#5
post #4
post #2

I'm thinking about the YC question, "why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? My partner and I could duplicate any given YC company, feature-for-feature, quickly. So, to first order, the answer to this question is, "It's not hard." But just duplicating can't be the real worry here. Is the underlying question, "Why won't your competitors quickly duplicate what you're building?"

It's hard to get users, particularly if you are not the first in a given area.

If someone wants to copy a YC company that's m months old, a copy-cat site could be build in ~ m months. None of the YC companies seem to have a "secret sauce" that would take years to develop. (And I'm not saying they should.)

Since the answer to the duplication question is universally "no", why put it on the application? What is the subtext that I am missing?

Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#8
post #2

I'm thinking about the YC question, "why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate? My partner and I could duplicate any given YC company, feature-for-feature, quickly. So, to first order, the answer to this question is, "It's not hard." But just duplicating can't be the real worry here. Is the underlying question, "Why won't your competitors quickly duplicate what you're building?"

Related question in the YC app: "What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get?"

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17628

Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#9
Initially, I thought the question was referring to a project on strictly technical terms. After thinking, I soon realized that it's not all about technicalities and complexity in code, rather it can be taken as why would the atmosphere, communities, ease of use, value, services, etc. that your project will create be difficult to duplicate by competitors.

Surely, big companies such as Google, etc., can probably code any given project in fractions of a time less than the time say a couple hackers can complete it in, but I believe it's the environment and quality of service that you provide that differentiates one project from a duplicate.

At least that's how I interpreted it.

Re: Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

#10
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to get users, particularly if you are not the first in a given area.

If someone wants to copy a YC company that's m months old, a copy-cat site could be build in ~ m months. None of the YC companies seem to have a "secret sauce" that would take years to develop. (And I'm not saying they should.) Since the answer to the duplication question is universally "no", why put it on the application? What is the subtext that I am missing?

To get people thinking about it?
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