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“Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

andrewchen.co

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Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#41

Post by kristopolous »

ronilan wrote: post #22
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

> how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Wikipedia will tell you that UPS started as a parcel delivery service in the early 20th century. Naturally it was ground based and evolved that way. FedEx was founded in the 70s as a technology driven startup with the idea of using planes for delivery. FedEx was UPS for Express Deliveries. X for Y.

Let's try it another way, "there can be more than one sandwich shop"

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#42

Post by throwaway_law »

jandrese wrote: post #24
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

A more direct question would be "Why should a potential customer choose you over $established_competitor_x?" If your best answer is "We are adding diversity to the marketplace", then you're probably doomed. If you aren't better in some way (faster, cheaper, better tech, etc...) then people are going to naturally gravitate towards the incumbent who has already shown some staying power and has infrastructure in place t…

>If your best answer is "We are adding diversity to the marketplace", then you're probably doomed. If you aren't better in some way (faster, cheaper, better tech, etc...)

We have seen it over and over in tech though...some small time founder starts something and then a VC back startup eats their lunch and takes the market (of course rewriting history along the way to say they invented/disrupted the market).

The sad truth is the answer to why a customer will choose us over established competitor is because...VC capital/your money. We will use VC capital/your money to out spend/out market our competitor because they can only grow as fast as their revenue, whereas we can artificially grow using your VC money, even to the point we can subsidize the price of our widget which the established competitor can't, we will grow our market share, even if at a loss because at any time we can "flip the switch and its all profit."

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#43

Post by benburleson »

jandrese wrote: post #24
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

A more direct question would be "Why should a potential customer choose you over $established_competitor_x?" If your best answer is "We are adding diversity to the marketplace", then you're probably doomed. If you aren't better in some way (faster, cheaper, better tech, etc...) then people are going to naturally gravitate towards the incumbent who has already shown some staying power and has infrastructure in place t…

Not always true. Sometimes customers hate the vendor, but there is no viable alternative.

Just remove a couple pain points and you can create a shift.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#44

Post by swalsh »

jandrese wrote: post #24
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

A more direct question would be "Why should a potential customer choose you over $established_competitor_x?" If your best answer is "We are adding diversity to the marketplace", then you're probably doomed. If you aren't better in some way (faster, cheaper, better tech, etc...) then people are going to naturally gravitate towards the incumbent who has already shown some staying power and has infrastructure in place t…

Often enough though, people are unfamiliar with both your brands. So they're going to choose the person with better marketing. Sometimes marketing IS the difference, and engineers hate to hear that.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#45

Post by frandroid »

snegu wrote: post #18

One category that's missing on the left is "Parents." There's Tinder for parents (Peanut), Birchbox for parents (multiple subscription boxes). It would be interesting to think about what Uber or AirBnB for parents would be. I couldn't read the article though because I got that absurd uncloseable newsletter subscription screen. That was one of the most user-hostile things I've seen on a website lately.

I found the X in white on white at the top right. Maybe a browser bug, I'm in Firefox.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#46

Post by jdauriemma »

dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

I think the differentiation factor is relevant to venture capitalists more than end users. Having an equity stake in a new business is a risky proposition. A unique market position, or perhaps an idea that is patentable, provides the prospect of risk mitigation - the idea itself may be able to be liquidated if the business fails. There's also the upside of being the only player in a given market.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#47

Post by cortesoft »

tootie wrote: post #27
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

How Lyft differentiates from Uber might be more on the nose.

When Lyft first started, there was no set price for rides... you would pay what you wanted. It was very strange, I didn't like it.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#48

Post by ci5er »

kristopolous wrote: post #41
ronilan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Wikipedia will tell you that UPS started as a parcel delivery service in the early 20th century. Naturally it was ground based and evolved that way. FedEx was founded in the 70s as a technology driven startup with the idea of using planes for delivery. FedEx was UPS for Express Deliveries. X for Y.

Let's try it another way, "there can be more than one sandwich shop"

But not more than one bar per 10,200 residents in Salt Lake City!

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#49

Post by soperj »

blfr wrote: post #14
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

Maybe but here on the Internet there seems to be one search engine which rakes in most of the money, one social network where most people have accounts, one electronic toy maker which sits on top of a mountain on cash. Second prize is a set of steak knives.

And yet here I am using Duckduckgo and twitter on firefox...

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#50

Post by notJim »

kristopolous wrote: post #41
ronilan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Wikipedia will tell you that UPS started as a parcel delivery service in the early 20th century. Naturally it was ground based and evolved that way. FedEx was founded in the 70s as a technology driven startup with the idea of using planes for delivery. FedEx was UPS for Express Deliveries. X for Y.

Let's try it another way, "there can be more than one sandwich shop"

Sandwich shops differentiate themselves from each other considerably though, so I'm not sure this is a good analogy.
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