In greenfield markets, your competitors are your friends

http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors

by dreeves • 15 years ago

15 7 15 years ago

blog.beeminder.com

dreeves4• 15 years ago

Relevant excerpt:

It's funny how we once thought of it as worrisome to see other startups pursuing our idea. It's so clearly the opposite of worrisome! The more the merrier! All these startups are helping each other get the public exposed to commitment devices.

It's like my brother who has a sushi restaurant in Peoria, IL with one primary competitor in town. Since most people in town haven't even tried sushi, most of the marketing that my brother's competitor does is just creating new sushi eaters, some of whom will then presumably eat at my brother's restaurant. Anecdotally, that effect dwarfs any actual customer stealing that the competitor may do.

With Beeminder and StickK and now Aherk and others, it's like that but even more so: 99% of the population hasn't heard of a single one of us!

justindocanto2• 15 years ago

Sounded interesting. Opened link. Saw this & Closed.

From the website: "UPDATE: I originally referred to it as a “gay photo” which I thought was kosher since I clarified that I was not using “gay” pejoratively nor do I equate “gay” with “compromising”. Sense was quickly knocked into me (thanks everyone!): steer a wide berth around the kinds of things bigots say and don’t rely on wordy explanations to counter a first impression!"

Seriously?

dreeves4• 15 years ago

Eep, sorry, I don't want that to distract from the real point of the post! I think it will make sense if you check out the idea behind behind Aherk.

justindocanto2• 15 years ago

I'm just not interested in listening to somebody that talks like that, whether corrected or not. You might have great ideas or a post or whatever the link was, but it's an immediate turn off for me. Sorry. =)

bsoule• 15 years ago

This is similar to how stores of the same type cluster together. But the sushi analogy may not map to web services, because with sushi you might explicitly seek variety. With a web service of this sort, you get drawn in. They have your contract, your data, etc, and there's a cost to switching.

dreeves4• 15 years ago

I'm curious, have others written posts like this on their company blog, extolling the virtues of (and linking to) your competitors?

In greenfield markets, your competitors are your friends

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