Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 166 posts

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#131

Post by mrmrcoleman »

gmueckl wrote: post #113
mrmrcoleman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, and a useful book on positioning is: https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/00... Furthermore, one way to avoid ending up in a feature for feature fight to the death with a bigger player is to think instead in terms of “job to be done”: https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done By planning what you work on by focusing on what the customer is trying to achieve you’ll…

The "job to be done" is essentially just another term for the customer's need, right? To me, the main utility of that phrase is that it emphasizes the mindset of the customer much more than looking for a need.

Yes that’s my understanding but looking at it as a job to be done intuitively moves towards how they currently do the job. This can often reveal other areas where you can help.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#132

Post by ineedasername »

ineedasername wrote: post #35
xfitm3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Jeff’s statement holds true today? I’m under the impression Amazon is less customer centric but maybe I am biased.

I think they are less customer centric, based on my own experiences as a customer over the years. Their customer service is still pretty decent though. And I think Bezos's statement on their willingness to make long term investments still holds.

I should stipulate that I separate these issues in my head from things like dismal working conditions. There's nothing that precludes Amazon from being excellent in some areas of corporate management and horrible in other ways. I think their increase to a minimum $15/hour wage was a very small step in the right direction, but they have a ways to go. Basically I consider their warehouse operations as a case-in-point for why unions still have a use in modern times. The ability to have a bathroom break that doesn't involve threading your member into an bottle in an out of the way place on the warehouse floor would seem to be one of the first "asks" of such a union. I also see the need to have medical services on site 24/7 as less of a feature, and more of a bandaid over the bug that is constant worker injury. In speaks to a culture of hurt that perpetually keeps the "time since last injury" clock hovering in the half-hour range.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#134

Post by notahacker »

rbreve wrote: post #90

And then at every vc/incubator they ask you, why are you better than your competitors?

This.

Worrying about your competitors redesigning their shopping cart or reducing their price by 99 cents per month might well be wasted time, unless you happen to find their design particularly admirable or compete in a very price sensitive industry. But not even considering what people might use instead of your service (even if this "competitor" is actually "do it in Excel") and whether there are things you can learn from that would be a bigger mistake.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#135

Post by barry-cotter »

sitkack wrote: post #38
lbacaj wrote: post #14

Totally agree with PG on this. This isn’t the first time he says this obviously and has put a lot of thought into this. The quote I really like from him on this topic is: “A startup worrying about competitors is like a fat guy smoking a cigarette as he worries about contracting West Nile Virus.” I like to remind my two friends helping me build our side project right now of this reality all the time. There are so many…

This makes me think of the relationship between gestation time and maximum age of the organism and the number of offspring. Maybe the next VC craze will be handing groups of 20 year olds 10k$ and some advice.

https://pioneer.app/

Apply with anything Apply with any type of project you need help with. It could be a company, physics research, journalism, or art. All you need to do is convince other applicants that your project is worth doing.

Play the Tournament Every week other participants will give you feedback and points. The more interesting your work, the higher your score will be. Each month, the top-ranked applicants become new Pioneers.

Become a Pioneer Pioneers receive a $1,000 investment with the possibility for a $100,000 follow-on, a round-trip ticket to San Francisco and access to a private online forum with other Pioneers. See the terms of the Pioneer offer.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#136

Post by ghiculescu »

arcturus17 wrote: post #120
Dumblydorr wrote: post #104

In the US Civil War, general Sherman was brilliant at logistics and military science and had one of the most prescient views of the wars length and brutality at its outset. And yet, US Grant was made the overall field commander by Lincoln. Of Grant, Sherman argued he himself was better at generaling than Grant in almost every way except this: Grant doesn't give a damn what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scar…

Can't say I understand any of this. So Sherman thought that Grant's lack of preocupation for enemy' action out of sight was a virtue? Why?

He didn’t worry about things he couldn’t control.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#137

Post by nicodjimenez »

That's coming from a guy whose startup Viaweb was essentially made completely irrelevant by a competitor (Amazon) with a better strategy. Does anyone really buy things on Yahoo stores anymore?

If you want to grow fast and sell out, then you probably don't need to worry about competitors, but if you want to stay in business for a long time, you do need to worry about having sustainable competitive advantages.

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#138

Post by [deleted] »

xfitm3 wrote: post #29
aboutruby wrote: post #7

Full text is: > At both Viaweb and YC, every minute I spent thinking about competitors was, in retrospect, a minute wasted. Follow-up tweet: > It may be useful for some companies to think about competitors. That's why I didn't phrase it as a general rule. In particular it may be useful for more established companies to. If a startup has to, though, they're probably doomed. Also a quote from Jeff Bezos: > “If you want…

Do you think Jeff’s statement holds true today? I’m under the impression Amazon is less customer centric but maybe I am biased.

[deleted]

Re: “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”

#139

Post by dazbradbury »

LukeWalsh wrote: post #115
dazbradbury wrote: post #98

Funny - I have an email from pg from 2011 where YC didn't fund OpenRent [1] due to our competitors being too dominant. As head strong (and certainly naiive) young founders at the time, we continued with our vision anyway. Thankfully we have gone on to become by far the largest rental agency in the uk, and have driven real change (see tenant fees ban) in the industry. I mention this as when it comes to investment deci…

I used OpenRent to find my last flat in London. It was great!

Very happy to hear it!
Post reply on HN