The competition tag has no wiki summary.
15
votes
9answers
1k views
How novel does a startup idea need to be?
I Googled my idea and found another company that has been doing the same thing for a few years. It's for somewhat of a niche market, but everyone I talk to (including potential clients) says it's a ...
13
votes
2answers
431 views
When to compete on an idea?
I spend a lot of time thinking about potential start up ideas. I come up with a couple every now and then, but when I go searching online there is always quite a few competitors. I don't think I've ...
12
votes
3answers
304 views
Should we dare to “enter the dragon's lair” in order to promote our website?
We are a small startup, just released a MVP and are now in the promotion phase.
As part of the promotion we are seeking to get the message out by writing articles on other (related) sites etc.
There ...
11
votes
8answers
732 views
What to do when a 800 pound gorilla enters your business?
We had launched blogVault, a wordpress backup service, about a month back. A week later, Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, launches Vaultpress, to massive coverage. This service does pretty ...
11
votes
5answers
430 views
Running an aggressive promotion against a competing product
We want to run a promotion on our website. In the promotion, if someone can provide us proof of purchase of a competitor's software license, we will give them a free software license of our product.
...
11
votes
7answers
484 views
Should I continue against well-funded competition?
I started working on a location based game for smartphones this past august (www.tuzo.ca). At the time, competitors included Foursquare, Gowalla, and some smaller players but i felt like I could ...
10
votes
4answers
283 views
How does “second to market” compete with “first to market” when the company that was first to market is very entrenched in the market already?
As an example, let's take Yelp. Yelp has carved out a serious niche for itself in the user review market.
What if you thought you could do it better? How would you make traction in that market? ...
9
votes
9answers
524 views
How would you differenciate yourself if you were to compete with online accounting software?
E-conomic is online accounting software, which enables you to write invoices to customers using web forms, track inventory etc.
I am considering to start a company, which would compete with this ...
9
votes
13answers
782 views
Irrational fear of existing competitor?
Currently in my niche, there are one or two other competitors.
Every time I go on their site, or download their software, my heart pounds. I get extremely anxious at how professional and elegant ...
9
votes
6answers
526 views
Just getting started; someone else released the same app - what now?
Please imagine this scenario for a moment:
You've got a great idea for a software product, and research indicates you've got basically no competition because your product has unique features that ...
9
votes
5answers
426 views
Giving away a software program for free: competitors' responses?
I have a small startup that developed a software program. I've copyrighted the software and am working on patent protection, and I've started some marketing. It has been a very low-cost effort so ...
8
votes
2answers
294 views
Is there any reason to scrap a start-up, when you find out there is more competition then originally thought?
When initially researching the competition during the early stages of the product development, there did not appear to be very much competition, other then two larger contenders. However, as this ...
7
votes
5answers
2k views
What is the secret of Dropbox's success?
Why is Dropbox so much more successful than many other sites that offer/offered essentially the same service?
7
votes
4answers
440 views
Starting a company with a very similar competitor already in place
I have a tech startup I'm looking to do in the mobile applications space. I thought my idea was very unique and my business partner and I spent about a week coming up with planning, name, concept, ...
7
votes
4answers
1k views
How do you evaluate the competitive landscape before building?
Suppose you are evaluating an idea for commercial viability. You look to see whether there are competitors. Of course there are, because there always are. How do you judge whether the market has an ...
7
votes
2answers
150 views
competitor requested software download for a niche market product, should I oblige?
We are in stage of market validation and working with few early adopters to mature our software product that targets a niche market. Potential customers can fill out a form for a trial download and we ...
6
votes
8answers
885 views
How do i know if the idea i have in mind for startup is not being worked on by another stealth startup company
I have an idea in my mind, but how do i know if someother company is already working on a similar idea (espeically in stealth mode) or worse if i start working on my idea and half way through if the ...
6
votes
6answers
608 views
Am I ruining the industry?
I'm currently building/running a 'digital marketing agency' from home with my partner. We provide websites (business card sites, CMS-driven sites, e-commerce etc), hosting, email services right ...
6
votes
8answers
611 views
When the competition is checking out your site, should you respond?
We recently launched our site and anyone can try it out for free. We've noticed that a number of people from large competitors have been signing up, some are fairly high executives. These are ...
6
votes
8answers
263 views
What sites or software tools do you use to track your competitors?
I'm interested in tracking many different aspects:
Prices
New / Updated Products
New features
Negative / Positive feedback
Press releases
Balance sheets
etc.
6
votes
4answers
735 views
Advantages and Disadvantages of Making Source Code Public
I like the idea of open source collaboration and making our code for our application we are building public on github. This would allow people to give their input and even allow certain parts of the ...
6
votes
3answers
242 views
Anyone entered last years MassChallenge?
I just entered MassChallenge.org and I was wondering if anyone had some experiences to share from last years event? Or any tips or tricks on what to do or what not to do there.
6
votes
2answers
114 views
What makes customers jump ship?
There is Company X online that provides a service for its visitors - and though they currently have the monopoly and have for the past 10 years, the quality of their service is not so great and ...
5
votes
6answers
568 views
Can you be sued by a competitor simply for looking at their website?
I have been working on a SaaS product for about a year and a half (on and off, among other projects). Lately I have gotten serious about the product. While doing a routine evaluation of competitors ...
5
votes
3answers
236 views
Should I make my service free?
For the past year I have been developing a VERY niche based review/community site, in the healthcare field. I did as much h/w as possible in searching for competitors, and there were zero direct ...
5
votes
4answers
481 views
How to enter a market dominated by a poor Open-Source product
An established but somehow abandoned open-source project dominates a niche market.
We wonder why users recommend this software everywhere as it is ridiculuosly complicated and geeky to configure. I ...
5
votes
2answers
224 views
How do startups compete with other startups working on similar things?
How do startups deal with the pressure of competing startups doing similiar, if not exact same, things?
What about when a startup is competing against a similar service offered by existing web ...
5
votes
4answers
255 views
I have a startup that is almost ready and I'm finding it hard to get companies on board, what can I do?
I know this question has been asked many times before in a plethora of different ways, but I couldn't find anything to help me out, so my apologies if this comes off as a duplicate of another question ...
5
votes
7answers
396 views
But can't that big competitor with lots of money do what you're doing?
I have a startup idea that improves upon an existing idea in a uniquel and differentiated way. Let's call my idea "David". However, there exists a very large, well-known competitor, "Goliath".
David ...
5
votes
2answers
252 views
How to sell start-up to a competitor?
I have a startup that has developed a few software products. I'm finally having a decent amount of success in getting people to use the products, but I am tired of putting money into this and would ...
5
votes
2answers
305 views
How do AdWords spy services work?
There are several services like SpyFu, AdBeat & ispionage which advertise they can provide the keywords, budget, ad copy and other information which competitors use in different ad networks like ...
4
votes
13answers
1k views
How did Groupon do so well given its competition?
How was it that Groupon was able to become a billion dollar company despite so many similar sites and seeming easiness of copying whatever is unique about their model?
UPDATE: There seems to be ...
4
votes
6answers
363 views
Create identical product and sell for half price?
I would like to compete in the software market and I thought that if I just present a product that provides the same functionality and is as good as its competitors and sell if for half the price then ...
4
votes
9answers
558 views
Does fear of competition hinder your actions?
I'm afraid to take the "create a buzz" route before launching. Meaning setting up a domain name and collecting emails from interested users, and maybe get blog posts. I feel that my domain name gives ...
4
votes
5answers
1k views
Importance of Competitive Advantage in Tech Companies
I've always been taught to have a competitive advantage. What makes my company special, different, better, etc. What prevents someone from doing what making something that mimics my business. Well, I ...
4
votes
2answers
208 views
Should I apply for a job with a future competitor to get some inside knowledge?
I’m a web developer/designer and had a business idea for a website about 10 years ago which, for various personal reasons have only started to take the time to start building over the last few ...
4
votes
3answers
140 views
Competing With “Fair” Wages
Right off the bat, I have decided there is no way I will be able to compete in the software/IT-services world on price. There are a number of offshore organizations, for example, that provide the same ...
4
votes
3answers
253 views
Should I let my (large, established) competitors snoop around our service?
we built an idea management system at the Taipei Startup Weekend (a few days ago) and were delighted to finish second.
This morning we've found that a competitor, one who's clients include FedEx, ...
3
votes
7answers
534 views
How to fight clones?
I would like to know your views on fighting clones.
For example look at these web pages.
polldaddy.com/signup
sissurvey.net/signup.aspx
It is pretty clear that Polldaddy launched poll service ...
3
votes
6answers
338 views
Can Price be the ONLY competitive advantage?
I am just venturing into a new product and one thing I realised is that "Price is the ONLY one advantage" I have. I have solid web-development experience and I can build web apps in a fraction of time ...
3
votes
3answers
198 views
How do I get financial information for a competitor located in Canada?
How do I get financial information (turnover, profit etc) for a competitor located in Canada?
Here in Sweden, there are several sites which can be used to get financial information. For instance, ...
3
votes
3answers
106 views
When/How Often Do Startups Join Together?
I asked this on my blog, but then realized this would be a good forum for discussions so am asking here as well:
How Often Do Startups Join Together?
In talking to and mentoring dozens of startups ...
3
votes
3answers
246 views
How do you gather in depth competitive intelligence with no cost?
I am able to access free whitepapers etc but i haven't been in the market long enough to know really what I am competing with to improve my positioning and competitive advantage. How can I access the ...
3
votes
4answers
138 views
Swimming with sharks
I have a software package that works in concert with other systems that are similar to CRMs. (sorry to be vague).
Our clients will always have one of the "crm"'s installed and our product bolts on ...
3
votes
1answer
203 views
Launching Competing SaaS (how blatant can you mention your competitor)
I am launching some SaaS later next week that will be directly competing with someone who has a monopoly in the space. We will (hopefully) be cheaper, more features, better support and more ...
3
votes
3answers
155 views
What lessons can we learn about running a software company from Facebook's triumph over MySpace?
At one point MySpace was THE winner in social networks, but over the span of just a few years lost out to Facebook. Why did this happen? And what lessons can we learn for our own companies?
I am not ...
3
votes
3answers
150 views
Unique Visitors to Customer Base corelation
I am researching my competitors before getting into SAAS based software market. For one of the competitors total monthly unique visitors to be 3000. I am calculating roughly 50% of them are ...
3
votes
1answer
99 views
Giving away a free copy of software to entice people to leave their email
I've just been reading a book by Rob Walling titled "Start Small, Stay Small" and I came across an interesting idea (one of many he has in the book). I wondered what people on here thought.
My ...
3
votes
3answers
68 views
How to compete in this special scenario?
There are currently two providers of an IT-solution in a national market. These two charge roughly four times the price I would expect to see in a functioning market. This indicates that the two have ...
3
votes
4answers
162 views
How to respond when a direct competitor contacts you for an exchange of links?
We are a US based online recruitment and business solutions company focused on a niche (energy related). We have been aware of a "bottom creeper" competitor that has literally been imitating our ...
