4 ms·

In greenfield markets, your competitors are your friends

15 points by dreeves 15y ago

dreeves 15y ago
Relevant excerpt: It's funny how we once thought of it as worrisome to see other startups pursuing our idea. It's so clearly the opposite of worrisome! The more the merrier! All these startups are helping each other get the public exposed to commitment devices. It's like my brother who has a sushi restaurant in Peoria, IL with one primary competitor in town. Since most people in town haven't even tried sushi, most of the marketing that my brother's competitor does is just creating new sushi eaters, some of whom will then presumably eat at my brother's restaurant. Anecdotally, that effect dwarfs any actual customer stealing that the competitor may do. With Beeminder and StickK and now Aherk and others, it's like that but even more so: 99% of the population hasn't heard of a single one of us!
justindocanto 15y ago
Sounded interesting. Opened link. Saw this & Closed. From the website: "UPDATE: I originally referred to it as a “gay photo” which I thought was kosher since I clarified that I was not using “gay” pejoratively nor do I equate “gay” with “compromising”. Sense was quickly knocked into me (thanks everyone!): steer a wide berth around the kinds of things bigots say and don’t rely on wordy explanations to counter a first impression!" Seriously?
- dreeves 15y ago
  Eep, sorry, I don't want that to distract from the real point of the post! I think it will make sense if you check out the idea behind behind Aherk.
  - justindocanto 15y ago
    I'm just not interested in listening to somebody that talks like that, whether corrected or not. You might have great ideas or a post or whatever the link was, but it's an immediate turn off for me. Sorry. =)
    - dreeves 15y ago
      Oy, really sorry about that. I guess we should take further discussion offline but I'm eager to understand what "like that" means. The word "gay" itself isn't offensive, I assume. I can't help but feel you must've taken it the wrong way. But even if so it was dumb of me to say something so easily misinterpretable. Btw, the original version of the paragraph in question is included at the very end.
bsoule 15y ago
This is similar to how stores of the same type cluster together. But the sushi analogy may not map to web services, because with sushi you might explicitly seek variety. With a web service of this sort, you get drawn in. They have your contract, your data, etc, and there's a cost to switching.
dreeves 15y ago
I'm curious, have others written posts like this on their company blog, extolling the virtues of (and linking to) your competitors?

15 points by dreeves 15y ago

Relevant excerpt: It's funny how we once thought of it as worrisome to see other startups pursuing our idea. It's so clearly the opposite of worrisome! The more the merrier! All these startups are helping each other get the public exposed to commitment devices. It's like my brother who has a sushi restaurant in Peoria, IL with one primary competitor in town. Since most people in town haven't even tried sushi, most of the marketing that my brother's competitor does is just creating new sushi eaters, some of whom will then presumably eat at my brother's restaurant. Anecdotally, that effect dwarfs any actual customer stealing that the competitor may do. With Beeminder and StickK and now Aherk and others, it's like that but even more so: 99% of the population hasn't heard of a single one of us!

justindocanto 15y ago

Sounded interesting. Opened link. Saw this & Closed. From the website: "UPDATE: I originally referred to it as a “gay photo” which I thought was kosher since I clarified that I was not using “gay” pejoratively nor do I equate “gay” with “compromising”. Sense was quickly knocked into me (thanks everyone!): steer a wide berth around the kinds of things bigots say and don’t rely on wordy explanations to counter a first impression!" Seriously?

dreeves 15y ago
Eep, sorry, I don't want that to distract from the real point of the post! I think it will make sense if you check out the idea behind behind Aherk.
- justindocanto 15y ago
  I'm just not interested in listening to somebody that talks like that, whether corrected or not. You might have great ideas or a post or whatever the link was, but it's an immediate turn off for me. Sorry. =)
  - dreeves 15y ago
    Oy, really sorry about that. I guess we should take further discussion offline but I'm eager to understand what "like that" means. The word "gay" itself isn't offensive, I assume. I can't help but feel you must've taken it the wrong way. But even if so it was dumb of me to say something so easily misinterpretable. Btw, the original version of the paragraph in question is included at the very end.

bsoule 15y ago

This is similar to how stores of the same type cluster together. But the sushi analogy may not map to web services, because with sushi you might explicitly seek variety. With a web service of this sort, you get drawn in. They have your contract, your data, etc, and there's a cost to switching.

dreeves 15y ago

I'm curious, have others written posts like this on their company blog, extolling the virtues of (and linking to) your competitors?