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If your biggest competition is an un- or under-funded, not yet widely known or used startup, you've got bigger problems than that startup. I find it amazing tha
by rexreed 13y ago
If your biggest competition is an un- or under-funded, not yet widely known or used startup, you've got bigger problems than that startup. I find it amazing that startups will consider other startups their main competition, when the reality is both startups need to focus on the larger untapped market rather than think that each other is stealing each other's non-existent business.
Another way to put it: If the market is really that small that one small startup can take away business from another small startup, then you don't have much of a market at all, and you should find a larger market.
Anyone who goes to such extents to snipe a startup really doesn't understand what it takes to gain market traction.
But it sounds like in this case, one startup wasn't really looking to snipe another startup, but rather capitalize on the press that would (potentially) be generated from that startup's launch. This happens all the time in other industries. Whenever Apple launches a product a myriad of other companies piggy-back on the press Apple generates. It's smart marketing.
It would only be underhanded if the startup was making false or disparaging claims about the other company in public. And that's borderline libel / slander anyways.
- maxcan 13y agogreat answer.
- wdewind 13y ago> Another way to put it: If the market is really that small that one small startup can take away business from another small startup, then you don't have much of a market at all, and you should find a larger market. This is true but not the entire picture. It is extremely common for the VC community to de facto agree on a leader of a space. Markets are frequently interpreted as winner takes all, despite the reality that almost none are. Once a winner has been agreed to it can be extremely difficult to raise funding in the same space.
- saurik 13y agoYour argument implies the startups are competing for customers: from the description they are competing for investors; in fact, in such a scenario, your biggest competitor is pretty much always "an un- or under-funded, not yet widely known or used startup". Investors are a group of people who are difficult to market to, and can also be difficult to cold call, so it seems like this technique of "sniping" a pitch at a semi-closed venue seems like it would be uniquely effective. (Even the ads they were supposedly running: end users would not be looking up stuff related to 500 Startups; the ads are almost certainly trying to catch the eye of potential investors looking for interesting companies.)