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> Focus on your product, make sure your customers love it, and more new customers get to know about it. If you do that, competition does not matter; if you don’

> Focus on your product, make sure your customers love it, and more new customers get to know about it. If you do that, competition does not matter; if you don’t do that, you lose regardless of competition. Ugh. I think these types of platitudes really trivialize the immensely difficult job of being a founder.

newaccount2021 5y ago
aaronblohowiak 5y ago
is making a product that customers love a trivial thing?
- AreYouSirius 5y ago
CodeWriter23 5y ago
> Ugh. I think these types of platitudes really trivialize the immensely difficult job of being a founder. Which includes creating EULA and ToS. How much time does one “waste” by adding a couple of extra paragraphs that can probably lifted from some standard copypasta boilerplate?
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > Which includes creating EULA and ToS. How much time does one “waste” by adding a couple of extra paragraphs that can probably lifted from some standard copypasta boilerplate? If you intend to use this adversarially, or if there's a chance it'll get tested in court - don't cheap out. Hire a lawyer to do this.
  - thfuran 5y ago
    >If you intend to use this adversarially, or if there's a chance it'll get tested in court And if not, why have it at all?
btown 5y ago
Agreed. Competitors can come in all shapes and sizes. Some can be real bullies or suck oxygen out of the room, some will be actively pulling away from your niche giving you tremendous opportunity to position your product as they misstep, and it's important to keep tabs on product changes and understand what kind of love (or ideally hate) your would-be customers are feeling from the incumbents. What's most important, in this context, is to have a founding team approaching the dynamics from different viewpoints, who can rein each other in if the instinct to monitor one's competition ever exceeds the strategic value, and share the burden of understanding the landscape of what customers need and what they think they can get elsewhere. IMO, having a great team is just about the only "startup rule" that is true without exception.
pvg 5y ago
"This is war" is a platitude/power/martyrdom fantasy that is far more likely to get you into legal, reputational and other workplace trouble than "build something people want".
otterley 5y ago
Is the advice wrong?

newaccount2021 5y ago

aaronblohowiak 5y ago

is making a product that customers love a trivial thing?

AreYouSirius 5y ago

CodeWriter23 5y ago

> Ugh. I think these types of platitudes really trivialize the immensely difficult job of being a founder. Which includes creating EULA and ToS. How much time does one “waste” by adding a couple of extra paragraphs that can probably lifted from some standard copypasta boilerplate?

sangnoir 5y ago
> Which includes creating EULA and ToS. How much time does one “waste” by adding a couple of extra paragraphs that can probably lifted from some standard copypasta boilerplate? If you intend to use this adversarially, or if there's a chance it'll get tested in court - don't cheap out. Hire a lawyer to do this.
- thfuran 5y ago
  >If you intend to use this adversarially, or if there's a chance it'll get tested in court And if not, why have it at all?

btown 5y ago

Agreed. Competitors can come in all shapes and sizes. Some can be real bullies or suck oxygen out of the room, some will be actively pulling away from your niche giving you tremendous opportunity to position your product as they misstep, and it's important to keep tabs on product changes and understand what kind of love (or ideally hate) your would-be customers are feeling from the incumbents. What's most important, in this context, is to have a founding team approaching the dynamics from different viewpoints, who can rein each other in if the instinct to monitor one's competition ever exceeds the strategic value, and share the burden of understanding the landscape of what customers need and what they think they can get elsewhere. IMO, having a great team is just about the only "startup rule" that is true without exception.

pvg 5y ago

"This is war" is a platitude/power/martyrdom fantasy that is far more likely to get you into legal, reputational and other workplace trouble than "build something people want".

otterley 5y ago

Is the advice wrong?