3 ms·

Ask HN: early project and new direct competitor

4 points by aymeric 17y ago

Hi everyone, I am developing a facebook application that helps people achieve their goals (http://apps.facebook.com/dogether) I knew there were two competitors: http://www.43things.com and http://www.goaltribe.com which is actually a good thing, it shows there is a need for this kind of application. But today GoalTribe launched a facebook application that is very similar to my facebook application: http://apps.facebook.com/goaltribefitness What do you suggest me to do? 1. Keep improving my application until I reach a better market fit than goaltribe? 2. Contact GoalTribe and find a partnership 3. Stop the project, the space is too crowded 4. Use some analytical method to decide 5. ?? As you can imagine, it is always a bit hard to discover a new competitor when you put some effort in your idea. Thank you for your help.

brk 17y ago
IMO, if 2 or 3 options in a particular space/niche is "too crowded", then you're looking at the wrong business in the first place.
karthikm 17y ago
I found go4it fb app to be the best facebook application with all features I was looking for (and some more) and it was a lot better than 43things. I'd recommend you to proceed and build your app till you are better than your competition (if this is what you are really passionate about building). The space is crowded and there are ~100 goal apps in fb. However, the best one beat the rest by a clear mile and I didn't even have second thoughts about using it. Note that I wouldn't use any other app right away for the following reasons: 1. go4it provides me all features I need. Some other tool should provide me with awesome features that I would definitely want to use. 2. I wouldn't want to copy all my goals, timelines, progress and comments into a different tool. For new users these factors won't apply. When you reach a point where you are better than the rest, provide screenshots (similar to yammer) of how everything works in your application and what's better. In my case, I had to install each app to try it and it was frustrating. >> As you can imagine, it is always a bit hard to discover a new competitor when you put some effort in your idea. - I can't really imagine this happening and I strongly disagree with this. Now that you are spending so much effort on your app, its all the more important for you to know what your existing and new competitors are doing. Its similar to defending your hand if you are the big blind in poker.
vabmit 17y ago
Is this just a project? Or, is it a start-up? If it's just a project, then it's probably just a hobby and you can make the decision based on how much you enjoy your hobby. If it's meant to be a start-up, then I think you need to focus on producing some hard data on market size and potential revenue before you even start thinking about the possibility that the space is too crowded. Whether or not the market is too crowded depends not so much on what features you can offer over your competitors' products, but on how much money you could potentially. Can you compete in this market and cover your development and infrastructure costs? Beyond that, do you think that you can eventually make enough profit that the opportunity cost of pursuing this specific start-up is worth it? Regarding revenue: What is your business model? Do you charge people for your application? Do you count on advertising income? Is the application designed in a way that generates revenue through virtual currency purchases or pay-per-action? Have these revenues been growing in line with your user base? Regarding market size: How many Facebook users do you think will eventually use this type of application? How many of them do you think will use your application? What percentage of invites to your application are accepted (are conversions)? When you graph your new users and your conversion rate, are they growing exponentially (like any tech start-up should be initially)? Or, it is only growing at a slow increment, nearly flat, or declining? They graphs would help you determine your overall growth and what percentage of total Facebook users you may be able to convert. That would help you answer the most important questions (those regarding financials). If either the growth of your income or your user base are not growing exponentially, I would suggest that you think about possible ways to increase both to that level of growth and factor the amount of work required into your decision. If you're not able to make both your user base and your income grow exponentially, I'd suggest you seriously consider pursuing a different start-up idea. You may be able to achieve the creation of a lifestyle business (one that would pay you a reasonable salary - $150K USD/yr) with just fast, but non-exponential growth at this early stage. But, that would not be the kind of life changing start-up that I, and many others on HN, are after.

4 points by aymeric 17y ago

brk 17y ago

IMO, if 2 or 3 options in a particular space/niche is "too crowded", then you're looking at the wrong business in the first place.

karthikm 17y ago

I found go4it fb app to be the best facebook application with all features I was looking for (and some more) and it was a lot better than 43things. I'd recommend you to proceed and build your app till you are better than your competition (if this is what you are really passionate about building). The space is crowded and there are ~100 goal apps in fb. However, the best one beat the rest by a clear mile and I didn't even have second thoughts about using it. Note that I wouldn't use any other app right away for the following reasons: 1. go4it provides me all features I need. Some other tool should provide me with awesome features that I would definitely want to use. 2. I wouldn't want to copy all my goals, timelines, progress and comments into a different tool. For new users these factors won't apply. When you reach a point where you are better than the rest, provide screenshots (similar to yammer) of how everything works in your application and what's better. In my case, I had to install each app to try it and it was frustrating. >> As you can imagine, it is always a bit hard to discover a new competitor when you put some effort in your idea. - I can't really imagine this happening and I strongly disagree with this. Now that you are spending so much effort on your app, its all the more important for you to know what your existing and new competitors are doing. Its similar to defending your hand if you are the big blind in poker.

vabmit 17y ago

Is this just a project? Or, is it a start-up? If it's just a project, then it's probably just a hobby and you can make the decision based on how much you enjoy your hobby. If it's meant to be a start-up, then I think you need to focus on producing some hard data on market size and potential revenue before you even start thinking about the possibility that the space is too crowded. Whether or not the market is too crowded depends not so much on what features you can offer over your competitors' products, but on how much money you could potentially. Can you compete in this market and cover your development and infrastructure costs? Beyond that, do you think that you can eventually make enough profit that the opportunity cost of pursuing this specific start-up is worth it? Regarding revenue: What is your business model? Do you charge people for your application? Do you count on advertising income? Is the application designed in a way that generates revenue through virtual currency purchases or pay-per-action? Have these revenues been growing in line with your user base? Regarding market size: How many Facebook users do you think will eventually use this type of application? How many of them do you think will use your application? What percentage of invites to your application are accepted (are conversions)? When you graph your new users and your conversion rate, are they growing exponentially (like any tech start-up should be initially)? Or, it is only growing at a slow increment, nearly flat, or declining? They graphs would help you determine your overall growth and what percentage of total Facebook users you may be able to convert. That would help you answer the most important questions (those regarding financials). If either the growth of your income or your user base are not growing exponentially, I would suggest that you think about possible ways to increase both to that level of growth and factor the amount of work required into your decision. If you're not able to make both your user base and your income grow exponentially, I'd suggest you seriously consider pursuing a different start-up idea. You may be able to achieve the creation of a lifestyle business (one that would pay you a reasonable salary - $150K USD/yr) with just fast, but non-exponential growth at this early stage. But, that would not be the kind of life changing start-up that I, and many others on HN, are after.