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" what's to stop them from copying you and eating your market share once you've launched?" Nothing. So the only defense would be, having a good headstart, by h

• hnlmorg 4y ago
  > Nothing. So the only defense would be, having a good headstart, by having a working product by the time of release. Just presenting ideas and sketches does not give this edge. Nobody is suggesting you should publicly disclose all your preliminary ideas and sketches. It's more about researching your users problems and having discussions there. Plus you could argue doing this actually aids in your "headstart" rather than hinders it: 1. You can approach the project with a better understanding of the problem domain and thus can tweak your solution to the captive market (rather than having to repeatedly pivot your product until you chance upon that market). 2. You already have contacts of potential customers before you launch. Anyone working in secret has to figure those two problems out after they launch.
• jollybean 4y ago
  'Everything' is stopping them from copying the idea. Doing a startup is a huge amount of work. Like the shipping coordinator for the warehouse you're selling into is going to just 'do a startup'? Or the lady who supports customers in the field on dialysis machines is going to go from middle aged customers service support to CEO? There are other things to worry about.