Should startups worry about their competition?

In this episode Jon and Justin discuss talk about
how you should think about your software
product's competition.


Why you shouldn’t focus on the competition



It’s a distraction. The main point by many
folks is: “when you focus too much on the competition, it means
you’re not focusing enough on your customers.”


It causes anxiety.“Last summer, I
stopped[reading industry news]. I had just reached the point at
which I could feel an unhealthy level of toxicity piling up
inside of me. I felt myself getting too involved, too absorbed,
and a bit too anxious about what I was missing, and about what
I knew or didn't know, but thought I should know. I was
checking Twitter too often and reloading sites too often. If
someone told me about something I hadn't heard of, I felt like
I should have already known about it. Industry news was
becoming an addiction.” - Jason Fried


It’s too tempting to copy features. “Copying
skips understanding. Understanding is how you grow. You have to
understand why something works or why something is how it is.
When you copy it, you miss that. You just repurpose the last
layer instead of understanding all the layers underneath.” –
Jason Fried


It can lead to feature creep. company A is
doing this, company B is doing that, so let’s do them all.
also, paralyzing indecision and no real thought about why you’d
be building a feature.

“I wouldn’t advocate spending much time worrying about the
competition — you really shouldn’t waste attention worrying about
things you can’t control — but if it helps make the point
relatable, the best way to beat the competition is to last longer
than they do.” – Jason Fried




Why you should focus on the competition



It’s a way of understanding your customers.
You should be aware of why customers are choosing (or not
choosing) the competition. 


It’s more competitive now. I wrote a post
about this.  “It's getting more expensive to build SaaS
companies and exits are weak.” Mattermark, 2016. “We're not
building these basic CRUD apps like we used to be able to. The
stuff's too competitive now.” – Rob Walling. "No one wants to
admit it, but the old ‘your product must be 10x better than
existing solutions’ trope is dead. I think this is one of the
most hostile times for startups that we’ve had, really.
Products are better, and competition is enormous." – Zach
Holman


It’s a way of revealing opportunities.
“Everybody's drilling for oil in the same spot because some
other guy found oil there already.” – Nick Quah. What’s
everyone else missing? Where’s the untapped well?


You’re stealing time, attention, and money
from somebody, and it’s not
always who you think!(Article) When Uber launched,
they stole customers from the taxi industry. When the iPhone
launched, Apple took customers from Kodak and the film
industry.



How to think about the competition



SWOT. What are their strengths? What are their
weaknesses? What are their opportunities? What are their
threats? Do SWOT on yourself too!


User interviews. One of the best ways to do
user research is to interview folks who are actively using the
competition! What brought them to start using it? How’d they
find it? What was going on in their life at that time? Why do
they keep using it?


When people switch. If people switch away from
you to a competitor, that’s a great time to ask questions. "The
only two people who can give you real feedback about your
product are people who just purchased it and people who just
canceled.” – Jason Fried


Think about how you can outlast them. What are
practices you can put in place that will help you outlast the
competition? “Whenever a startup goes out of business, the
first thing I get curious about are their costs, not their
revenues.” – Jason Fried


Figure out how you can make things
easier.How can you make your app easier to use
than the competition?


Look for unmet desires. What are the unmet
needs of users using competitors’ products? Search Twitter,
support forums, etc for instances of people complaining. What
are they complaining about?



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Show notes:


Val Sopi's new startup: Claritask

Podnews on Anchor and "podfading"

Worrying about the competition is pointless

How much should a startup worry about the competition?

Seriously don’t worry about the competition

How to think about startup competition

Why I don’t stress about the competition 

Does bootstrapping make you worry about the competition?

Why reading about your competitors will hurt your business?

Why you shouldn’t copy Basecamp

How to outlast the competition

Competing on easy

When you’re building a product, whose opinion should you
listen to?

Why many products struggle, but only a few succeed.

Who are you stealing from?

Book: Creative Selection