Search engines were pretty crappy before Google (and there were plenty of 'em-- it was a crowded market). There were lots of crappy mp3 players before the iPod

Search engines were pretty crappy before Google (and there were plenty of 'em-- it was a crowded market). There were lots of crappy mp3 players before the iPod. Cell phones were pretty universally crappy/boring before the iPhone. A guy I know who was a VC in the first bubble laments that he funded a startup that did the EXACT same thing as YouTube and failed horribly. Timing and execution can turn an existing market on its ear or develop previously small/uninteresting market. And by looking at the previous failures in a market, you can actually learn a little bit about what people really want or don't want (on someone else's nickel). In short, don't dismiss a market because someone else failed trying to serve it.