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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?

#71

Post by everdev »

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…

In SaaS you need some differentiating factor, but that's pretty easy:

We're faster, simpler, privacy friendly, cheaper, etc.

Most leading SaaS businesses have proven there's a market, but they're vulnerable on one of those key differentiators.

Sure, you might not conquer the market, but it's probably a safer way to build a lifestyle business than trying to come up with and market a novel idea.

Much easier to find forums of people complaining about product X not doing Y and fill that gap.

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

#72

Post by sien »

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…

Restaurants don't scale like applications do.

You can franchise, but the expansion is very different to what software can do.

That said, there are so many things that can be done better than the standard software, or where different varieties can work better for specific cases.

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

#73

Post by dx034 »

sheetjs wrote: post #53
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…

Also worth noting the downside of scale: some opportunities are "too small" for a Microsoft or Google to pursue. Google revenue for 2018 was $136.8B. Extra effort to possibly address a small niche segment of a market, that would improve revenue by $1M per year, is too small to draw anyone's attention. However, that same $1M/yr is enough to sustain a bootstrapped business and even possibly build the credibility to rai…

> However, that same $1M/yr is enough to sustain a bootstrapped business and even possibly build the credibility to raise a larger round and try to win the space.

And often, $1M/yr is not even needed. Many developers don't necessarily want to become managers and worry about funding rounds, hiring, etc. $1M/yr is already a pretty good lifestyle, no need to get further funding or scale the business if you're happy running the project on your own.

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

#74

Post by dx034 »

sp0rk wrote: post #69
fao_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most Electron apps are not only not efficient but also not performant.

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

#75

Post by d--b »

I think one of the question to ask yourself is: is that competing product the one I'd have built? Is it a product that would solve the problem I wanted to solve perfectly? Is that product awesome?

If the answer's yes, you probably should stop. Because at best, you'd make the same product. If not, see where the product fails and try and estimate what could be better and is it worth it.

Last, remember that the later you are on the market, the more expensive it gets to get attention. You'll either need cash or need to seek funding.

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

#76

Post by guybedo »

It's pretty hard nowadays to come up with a brilliant unique idea that has never been implemented before. I'm not even sure it's possible at all. Competition means there's a market and customers willing to pay for a product. This is a validation of your idea.

Now, unless you're shooting for the unicorn status, there's a pretty good chance you can build a good product, compete and get enough customers to make a living. You don't have to be the best or the cheapest to compete and you don't need hundreds of thousands of customers to make a living.

In the end, i think it really depends on what you're trying to achieve: unicorn status or small side project that you'll enjoy working on and might someday become a full time job.

Either way you should try to do what you love, or if that's not an option, to learn to love what you do. That way, even if you don't succeed, your time won't be wasted and will be spent doing something you love.

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

#78

Post by bigiain »

kibibu wrote: post #63
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.

And Alta Vista existed before Google...

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

#79

Post by lquist »

The heuristic for this is can you make the product 10x better (along a dimension that matters) for some subset of consumers? The subset can be equal to the set: Zoom makes video conferencing 10x better on reliability for the whole market. That said, that case is much rarer. It is often much easier to deeply understand the needs of a subset of users and make a tailored solution that delivers a 10x outcome to that set of users. Examples here are CRMs that specialize on industry verticals vs Salesforce. A pharmaceutical CRM is functionally very different than a one size fits all CRM. PS Also, stop looking for big markets. Look for a small market that you can dominate quickly and logically extend from there. PPS Most ideas here stolen from Thiel
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