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Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#61

Post by synotna »

atupis wrote: post #57
sonnyblarney wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a super helpful comparison. There is a net demand for Chinese food in the area, and there will definitely be such a thing as 'too much or little' supply (though obviously each offer i.e. supply is a little different) A single restaurant will only be able to meet so much demand, so if there's a niche in terms of region or menu, maybe there's a real opportunity. GitHub, Uber, FB - they all have ne…

Slack is centralized Irc clone with better UI.

And Dropbox is rsync, we know already

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#62

Post by beachy »

I was told early in my career that you can't sell something unless you have competitors. it's not universally true I expect but many potential customers operate from the mindset that a) if you have no competitors, it's not a real thing and b) there's no hurry for them to look into it.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#63

Post by kibibu »

nexuist wrote: post #16

A while ago, I was in the same boat. Why try to recreate GitHub, or Uber, or Salesforce, or Facebook? And once I discovered any competitors in my idea's field, I would chalk it down to "not worth trying" and call it a day. But then I realized, if my town can have 3-4 Chinese restaurants with the same exact menus (probably supplied by the same exact distributors), and they've all operated continuously for over a decad…

Additionally, Github, Salesforce, Uber and Facebook all entered into spaces with existing competitors.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#64

Post by jv22222 »

This is quite a nuanced subject. It's something I've had a chance to think long and hard about and discuss with many founders.

I wrote a lesson about it in the Nugget Startup Academy but it's behind a paywall. Here's a screen shot of that lesson. Apologies about the format and hope it helps your thinking on the subject:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ufpfrcarg7v5f3/competition.png?dl...

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#65

Post by halter73 »

_Nat_ wrote: post #11

I've long been baffled as to why what I'm building doesn't already exist. Sure it's tough to actually design-and-make, but it's basically a holy grail of computing that a ton of people have, I think, generally wanted since long before I was born. The weird thing is that I often do find people working on similar things. Sometimes they're historical projects I'll find a Wikipedia article on, or sometimes they're posted…

> I'm building an "intentional system". The idea's that you just tell the computer what to do, and it does it the best way possible. This includes figuring out what you told it to do, how to do that, how to optimize it, etc., in a provably optimal way.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to achieve, but to me, this sounds prohibitively difficult for even the largest most sophisticated organizations at this point in history. It's just way too general. Like general AI kind of general.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#66

Post by fao_ »

nexuist wrote: post #16

A while ago, I was in the same boat. Why try to recreate GitHub, or Uber, or Salesforce, or Facebook? And once I discovered any competitors in my idea's field, I would chalk it down to "not worth trying" and call it a day. But then I realized, if my town can have 3-4 Chinese restaurants with the same exact menus (probably supplied by the same exact distributors), and they've all operated continuously for over a decad…

> and 2019 performance.

This is kind of amusing given that most new modern things in the hacker news ecosystem use either electron or some other variation of nodejs. Which is usually the exact opposite of 'performant'.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#67

Post by naveen99 »

Can you link to the existing implementation? Is it keybase ?

Work on it anyway, if you can’t beat them, maybe you can join them one day. Even if you are second best, you will get free marketing from the #1, when potential customers do their due diligence.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#68

Post by mceachen »

I voluntarily entered one of the most saturated markets that I'm aware of. It's literally a cliché to "do a photo startup."

That rumbling dark cloud of well-funded, well-established competitors on the horizon, and (perhaps my mistaken) belief that I see gaps of sunshine where I can succeed, is one reason I get out of bed every morning and persevere.

That, and my wife needs the product. https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/

(forgive the Always Be Selling, please!)

It was common sentiment when I went through YC that many excellent ideas would be dismissed by investors due to perceived existing competition or absence of market. Only rapid execution, iteration, and customer feedback can actually determine if the idea has legs and can find product market fit.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#69

Post by sp0rk »

fao_ wrote: post #66
nexuist wrote: post #16

A while ago, I was in the same boat. Why try to recreate GitHub, or Uber, or Salesforce, or Facebook? And once I discovered any competitors in my idea's field, I would chalk it down to "not worth trying" and call it a day. But then I realized, if my town can have 3-4 Chinese restaurants with the same exact menus (probably supplied by the same exact distributors), and they've all operated continuously for over a decad…

> and 2019 performance. This is kind of amusing given that most new modern things in the hacker news ecosystem use either electron or some other variation of nodejs. Which is usually the exact opposite of 'performant'.

You're confusing performance with efficiency.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#70

Post by taherchhabra »

I am in the same boat as you are in.I Have so many ideas but not sure which one to follow. I found steve blank's "The startup owner's manual" very useful in evaluating ideas. I have created this excel(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cap3CIWHJq3WdAypU6l3...) using the website http://www.guidearama.com/guides/fwb.html
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