Does competition really matter?
So I recently thought of a SaaS product from a pain point I had running a marketing agency and thought nothing else does this in the unique way I wanted to solve it.
I spoke to developers, did more research and realised there's some software out there who do what I wanted to do.
Now I'm here again, stuck thinking if I should or shouldn't pursue this.
Being a non-tech founder, it's a lot harder to "not worry" about competition because If I want to build something it'll cost 10s of thousands.
What is your opinions on competition?
Only in software do we think "Oh well, that idea has been done, better find a different idea"
How many coffee machine brands are there? TV makers etc?
If the competition is doing well and you think you have a solution to the same problem with a slightly different take then go for it. They might be your eventual acquirer if that's the way you want to go.
My opinion is that competition serves as a great indicator for an existing market. Differentiation is the game. Start small and focus on the customer.
100%. An existing market is a great indicator that you're onto something. There's no doubt a problem exists and $$s are changing hands. Now you've just got to figure out your differentiators (tech, design, messaging, customer service, speed, segment, etc.).
Pouring your heart and soul into a project to only find that nobody cares is really tough. Avoid it, unless you've had some wins and you're ready to take a really big swing knowing that you'll most likely miss!
Your customer already know what they are looking for if there is already competition, you can adapt your sales pitch as "This is like X but with Y differences", might be easier to explain your product.
No.
In any case, whichever you decide, remember how many PAID email client products are there. Just a food for thought.
Competition definitely matters. But it's also free validation. And think about the size of the market. If a certain market is worth a billion dollars (which is a very niche market), and there are a hundred competitors, and you manage to grab half the customers from one of poorly performing one, that's a million dollars.
I know it's kinda counterintuitive but NOT doing any research into your competitors helps a lot. Once you start looking into what features they offer you'll focus on them and end up building a clone. You'll start thinking "I definitely need to have that because X has it" and it just goes downhill from there.
While competition is a good indicator of existing demand, you must analyze and differentiate yourself in positioning.
The best thing to do here, is to go and talk to those competitor's customers and ask how they're using that product to solve their problem.
During this conversation if you notice any problems that you can solve better, then ask them if they're considering switching if there exists a new product that's better than this.
Also ask what % of features they're using. Most customers only use the core features and not the extra ones.
Maybe then, you could make a cheaper version of that product with only that core feature and acquire new customers who would be specifically looking for that
Do it.
There's a lot of validation you can do before spending 10s of thousands.
Start by interviewing potential customers. Read the Mom Test, start there.
Be sure to consider "customer problem stack ranking"
https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1376033582305615873?s=20
Build a prototype -- you can make something usable with no-code tools or just figma/invision.
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These are all valuable skills to have, regardless if you move forward with this project. You'll learn a lot, and be ready to move forward with the next idea you have more quickly.
You're young. You'll have lots of ideas. Being able to take these first few steps yourself will be invaluable, and it can be a lot of fun.
There's no reason you can't do something better than the competition. Another way to look at it is that the competition may be targeting a different market than you are. When you look at slices of markets, its important to be laser focused so broadly speaking there might be a few markets interested in the product/service hence the existence of a competitor. But specifically there might narrower markets that have different needs than the current competitor offers.
I would say competition matters. Doesn't mean you still can't try, just make sure you do something unique.
Competition matters a lot. That's why you can't just build another Twitter and win. That being said, just because there are already businesses doing what you want to do doesn't mean you can't go into the market and be successful. If the market size permits 50 businesses to win in the market, then having two competitors would mean you are early; the context is important.
You don't have to waste a lot of money to test your idea. Check out no-code tools.