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And what is stopping shopify from implementing the same stuff? How will it matter then? That's a very good question. If Shopify has a significantly larger pre

And what is stopping shopify from implementing the same stuff? How will it matter then? That's a very good question. If Shopify has a significantly larger presence than you in the market, and has the resources to copy any innovations you put in place, you're going to continually be in the position of trying to differentiate yourself. They've got the "first-mover advantage", and if you are going to survive (much less thrive), you're going to need something significant to offset it. Which brings us back to the advice you got in the last go-round: you might want to find a niche (like e-book publishing) that you can focus on, where you can give a more specialized, more effective solution than Shopify's general purpose one. In other words, you give up the breadth of the market in order to make your offering more compelling to one particular segment. Shopify would have trouble following you down that path, as that would mean forking their codebase and attention. In general, it's easier to compete in a market where nobody is, than a market where somebody already resides. By choosing to go into a space that is already dominated by someone means having to play the game on their terms-- you're always going to be having to define yourself in relation to them.

irahul 16y ago
> If Shopify has a significantly larger presence than you in the market, and has the resources to copy any innovations you put in place From what we have seen this far, looks like both of them are true for shopify. > Which brings us back to the advice you got in the last go-round: you might want to find a niche (like e-book publishing) that you can focus on, where you can give a more specialized, more effective solution That's a good advice. I have couple of things planned. The general idea is not to compete but project shopyist as being different from shopify. > In general, it's easier to compete in a market where nobody is, than a market where somebody already resides. That's a hard world to find. Even if you come up with something which doesn't already have existing players, there are bound to be big players at some point of time. Consider http://mightybrand.com http://mightybrand.com. It's a good idea and hopefully a great implementation(haven't used it). There aren't any good SaaS players there but what is stopping Google from seeing it as lucrative and launching a competitor in a month? Google already have the index and sufficient competency in NLP to have it in a month. I am not downplaying your advice, I am just saying that assuming we will have a market all to ourselves is a bit of wishful thinking. Though it certainly helps to get the required traction in the beginning which means a lot.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  It's not at all that hard to find a market to yourself, if you think small enough-- and 'small enough' can still be plenty big. The first company I started was aimed at large networks of salmon farmers; worldwide, there were only about 20 customers worth considering, and there were already two software vendors serving the market (but not offering products similar to what we created.) From that base, we got enough traction to compete head-to-head with the existing products, and expand into other markets (chicken, pigs, dairy farmers, etc.) and the company had about 30 employees when I cashed out. My point is that there is doubtless some niche of Shopify customers (or prospects) that are under-served by Shopify's offering, and that if you identify this niche, truly understand their needs, and make them deliriously happy, you can be set for life. Often the way to get a market all to yourself is to re-invent an existing market. There were plenty of search engines before Google, but they changed the game, and AltaVista is now mostly forgotten.

irahul 16y ago

> If Shopify has a significantly larger presence than you in the market, and has the resources to copy any innovations you put in place From what we have seen this far, looks like both of them are true for shopify. > Which brings us back to the advice you got in the last go-round: you might want to find a niche (like e-book publishing) that you can focus on, where you can give a more specialized, more effective solution That's a good advice. I have couple of things planned. The general idea is not to compete but project shopyist as being different from shopify. > In general, it's easier to compete in a market where nobody is, than a market where somebody already resides. That's a hard world to find. Even if you come up with something which doesn't already have existing players, there are bound to be big players at some point of time. Consider http://mightybrand.com http://mightybrand.com. It's a good idea and hopefully a great implementation(haven't used it). There aren't any good SaaS players there but what is stopping Google from seeing it as lucrative and launching a competitor in a month? Google already have the index and sufficient competency in NLP to have it in a month. I am not downplaying your advice, I am just saying that assuming we will have a market all to ourselves is a bit of wishful thinking. Though it certainly helps to get the required traction in the beginning which means a lot.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
It's not at all that hard to find a market to yourself, if you think small enough-- and 'small enough' can still be plenty big. The first company I started was aimed at large networks of salmon farmers; worldwide, there were only about 20 customers worth considering, and there were already two software vendors serving the market (but not offering products similar to what we created.) From that base, we got enough traction to compete head-to-head with the existing products, and expand into other markets (chicken, pigs, dairy farmers, etc.) and the company had about 30 employees when I cashed out. My point is that there is doubtless some niche of Shopify customers (or prospects) that are under-served by Shopify's offering, and that if you identify this niche, truly understand their needs, and make them deliriously happy, you can be set for life. Often the way to get a market all to yourself is to re-invent an existing market. There were plenty of search engines before Google, but they changed the game, and AltaVista is now mostly forgotten.