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 nich

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.