5 ms·

> Shall we give up and start working on something else? You'll no doubt be told by a lot of folks that you should ignore the competition and execute against yo

> Shall we give up and start working on something else? You'll no doubt be told by a lot of folks that you should ignore the competition and execute against your original plans. In principle, this is the correct advice. But this "We found competition! What should we do?" question seems to be coming up frequently enough that I'm going to give the opposite advice, however harsh it may seem: yes, you may want to consider giving up. Here's why. If you never contemplated the possibility that you'd have competition, and that the competition might be better funded and further along than you, which is almost a given in today's market, you did not start your venture with realistic assumptions. If the existence of competition worries you enough to consider abandoning your venture before you have even launched and after you have asked others to invest money in it, you must honestly ask yourself whether you will have the stomach to keep going when you encounter real challenges, like technical hurdles that threaten your existence or disagreements with your friends/co-founders. Bottom line: it's virtually impossible to start a successful business with a weak hand. If the opportunity you're pursuing is not compelling enough to keep you from becoming easily discouraged by the slightest challenge before you are even in the market, wait until you find an opportunity that is. Good luck!

lndn_dilemna 12y ago
Thanks a lot for this response. > If you never contemplated the possibility that you'd have competition, and that the competition might be better funded and further along than you, which is almost a given in today's market, you did not start your venture with realistic assumptions. We always saw a lot of competition in the market (at the end, there are millions of ways people buy clothes) but didn't expect someone to be so spot on with our vision. This was real shocker. As you said, we didn't have realistic assumptions - it started as fun project and we thought we will abandon it like previous one. Only with time we realised this can really be something. > If the existence of competition worries you enough to consider abandoning your venture before you have even launched and after you have asked others to invest money in it, you must honestly ask yourself whether you will have the stomach to keep going when you encounter real challenges, like technical hurdles that threaten your existence or disagreements with your friends/co-founders. That's excellent questions. Luckily, after initial shock, I think this motivated us to work even harder. We don't want to give up on idea we really believe in just because someone else was couple months faster. We were postponing launching our app for a long time, and now we decided to just finish most important missing items and put it in Play store. It also finally motivated me to reach out my network and try to at least have initial meeting with real investors in London. So far we only pitched to friends who probably might have been a bit too supportive.
- kendrickwkm 12y ago
  Hey mate, are you based in London? Damn, and here I thought being based in SEA provides for a veil of secrecy. Never thought we'd be out in the woodworks so early. That's a good idea to reach out to others, I use 'The Mom Test' when validating customer problems - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/1492180742 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/1...

lndn_dilemna 12y ago

Thanks a lot for this response. > If you never contemplated the possibility that you'd have competition, and that the competition might be better funded and further along than you, which is almost a given in today's market, you did not start your venture with realistic assumptions. We always saw a lot of competition in the market (at the end, there are millions of ways people buy clothes) but didn't expect someone to be so spot on with our vision. This was real shocker. As you said, we didn't have realistic assumptions - it started as fun project and we thought we will abandon it like previous one. Only with time we realised this can really be something. > If the existence of competition worries you enough to consider abandoning your venture before you have even launched and after you have asked others to invest money in it, you must honestly ask yourself whether you will have the stomach to keep going when you encounter real challenges, like technical hurdles that threaten your existence or disagreements with your friends/co-founders. That's excellent questions. Luckily, after initial shock, I think this motivated us to work even harder. We don't want to give up on idea we really believe in just because someone else was couple months faster. We were postponing launching our app for a long time, and now we decided to just finish most important missing items and put it in Play store. It also finally motivated me to reach out my network and try to at least have initial meeting with real investors in London. So far we only pitched to friends who probably might have been a bit too supportive.

kendrickwkm 12y ago
Hey mate, are you based in London? Damn, and here I thought being based in SEA provides for a veil of secrecy. Never thought we'd be out in the woodworks so early. That's a good idea to reach out to others, I use 'The Mom Test' when validating customer problems - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/1492180742 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/1...