When I describe my startup to anyone they ask "how is this different from ABC?".
Being solo and the startup being my main occupation and ambitions to scale, it is very discouraging to hear time and again that what I've built is similar in most important aspects to ABC.
I have paying users, but operate at probably 1/1000th the scale of ABC.
I would work on narrowing my target audience and building for them, but results are not guaranteed. At this point I would like some certainty that my efforts will pay off, but honestly, I don't think I can expect that.
I'm pretty frustrated with the risk I've taken on so far and the years of effort I've put into it, only to end up a clone.
That said, I think this situation is probably familiar to those new calendar-booking apps, email apps, etc. They've found a way to stand out despite the presence of calendly, gmail, etc. I take inspiration from them and will carry on trying to find differentiation.
My question goes out to anyone familiar with this situation: how do you change your product strategy to be successful despite an 800-lb gorilla in your market?
Regardless of my question, if you have words of motivation or general advice, please share that too. I could use some positive energy from the universe today.
"Wufoo + Free Incentivization = Cheap, Effective User Surveys" https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/17/wufoo-free-incentivizat... (No HN discussion)
"Your first ten customers: How should you communicate with customers?" https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/starting-sales#how-should-yo... (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15534034 598 points | Oct 23, 2017 | 133 comments)
Can I add my own advice: In a previous post you said that you are using surveys. How long are them? I have very little patience and I'd answer only 2 or 3 questions, like
* Do you have any comment or feature request?
* Email/phone to ask more about this. (optional)
* [Not enough patience. I ignored the third question and closed the browser!]
Probably people has more patience than me, but try to make it short.
What's your answer to this? I'd expect a pretty good range is possible without any changes to product, from "you get support direct from the engineer and CEO?" to "Can ABC do this...?"
Related to the pitching or communications aspect, is it really a clone, or is it a clone-if-you-ignore-the-various-details? Those are way different.
Do you support charities, do you have a cuter mascot, do you regularly integrate direct client feedback, do you send out a mixtape every year?
Hang in there, define your goals, it really sounds to me like you are already done being awesome and are poking at legendary, wondering where the back door is. Could be really great from here, or it could be that this is more like a side gig to support your full set of life interests...
- Identify shortcomings in ABC, particularly on the intersection with other software, integrations or edge cases for specialized users
- Build feature spikes in your project for those cases
- Market your product around thise cases - ie. have dedicated pages where you have a hook "Better alternative to ABC for veterinarians"Startups with momentum that don’t self-destruct are likely to get acquired. VCs happy, founders happy. Senior engineers will bail soon afterward and the mood will change. More unhappy people on twitter. Bugs linger and don’t get fixed. The business is now focused primarily on getting larger customers or expanding to different markets.
And that leaves you with plenty of opportunity. It might not look like it now, but their 15 minutes won’t last forever. Be happy for their success and be happy that they’re expanding the size of the market for everybody. Keep plugging away and focus on your customers.
2) Fix those problems. Tell the VCs you're better because you have fixed these problem.
I don't mean bug fixes, I mean conceptual problems, fwiw.
There is a lot of room in these markets.
Happy to discuss more in details but if that 800-lb gorilla is VC funded, depending on the details, it's extremely likely they will fail and you will enjoy the rush of customers who are left hanging