Comment by givemeethekeys
1 day ago
I'd like to add to this, only because it is an early stage item but maybe a little unrelated:
If you are an early stage startup and your founders have a habit of talking about "competitors", run like hell.
1 day ago
I'd like to add to this, only because it is an early stage item but maybe a little unrelated:
If you are an early stage startup and your founders have a habit of talking about "competitors", run like hell.
+1. and if they say things like "we're going to disrupt the industry," again, run.
There were many things I did not like about working for Jeff Bezos, but one I did like is he kept repeating this.
> If you are an early stage startup and your founders have a habit of talking about "competitors", run like hell.
Why? Comparing what the competitors are doing can be a great way to come up with new ideas
because comparing yourself to your competitors will get you a faster horse buggy, not an automobile. if you're in a startup, you should be risking making automobiles. if you want to make faster horse buggies, go work for AT&T.
Good ideas need the right timing to line up. AT&T can afford to keep a research project around until the timing is right where a startup needs to find market fit immediately.
2 replies →
Ah, the mythical secret weakness of all startups: another startup doing the same thing.
1 reply →
Your competitors are not necessarily targeting the same users, and their internal strengths and weaknesses are different from yours. All comparisons to competitors are superficial and distract you from building what your users want and improving upon your internal strengths and weaknesses.
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Why
Scarcity mindset.