Ask HN: What do you do if someone is already building what you wanted to build?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9745669

by jaredsilver • 11 years ago

58 56 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

…better than you think you can build it?

neomech• 11 years ago

It depends. If I'm building it for my education/fun I'll carry on. If I'm building to use or for others to use, I'll move on to something else. I have way more project ideas that time to work on them, so I don't want to waste my time.

aespinoza• 11 years ago

Don't give up. It is the power of competition. First of all if someone is building the same it gives you some validation that your idea might be worth it. Second of all, there will always be a lot of people that look like they are working on the same thing, but the might not.

Do your analysis of the market, and iterate based on customer feedback. Your idea might seem similar, but it might be completely different. The race is not to build your idea, the race is to find out if the idea is worth it or not.

GTP• 11 years ago

You can try to build better than they are doing and see if you are able to do it otherwise try to find out if there's a way to help them building it.

stray2• 11 years ago

Build it anyway.

I've been working on an app that I believe will be beneficial to millions of people. And I've seen a few built and deployed that are SOOOOO close -- and even an announcement by a VERY big player that is also close.

But frankly, I believe they've all misfired.

And that it's my app that will literally change the world.

So I keep plugging away.

Alone.

We'll see if anybody actually uses it though. It's always a crapshoot.

I already dropped the ball once when I had essentially the same idea as Lyft or Uber -- but decided not to pursue it when I read Apple's rules against transportation-related apps.

I'd be willing to bet that hundreds of us had that idea. It was that obvious.

But Uber and Lyft actually built and deployed something.

And apparently those rules were rules that could be broken.

Oh well, live and learn.

hayd• 11 years ago

What were the (broken) rules on transportation-related apps??

Best of luck not dropping the ball this time!

stray2• 11 years ago

I don't recall exactly.

It would be interesting if someone could dig up the old apple App Store Review Guidelines from whenever Core Location first became available.

Currently it disallows "Apps that use location-based APIs for automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other devices will be rejected".

But I'm fairly certain that at the time it disallowed transportation industry related apps, and specifically mentioned trucking and taxis.

Which was irritating to me because during the dot-bomb at the turn of the century I had been reduced to the role of taxi driver for a time.

And the only way to actually get any fares through dispatch was to bribe everybody and especially the radio guys. I hated it and really had to work hard to make money from people hailing me.

So when I first learned of Core Location, my first thought was "motherfuck taxi dispatch - I can make them irrelevant with iPhones now".

Seriously, I'd love for someone to dredge up the old version of that document so I can read over it again.

sj0000• 11 years ago

Pros

--------

0) It's validation.

1) Execution will be different, they might bork it or serve different customer segments.

Cons

--------

0) Find/create durable competitive advantage/s

1) Win-Lose/Lose-Lose competition sucks because it's often dumb (see also: Peter Thiel)

zhte415• 11 years ago

Build it. Not anyway, just build it. Two houses on the same of the street, built by different neighbours, may be or less similar. The street gets better by 2+ neighbours focusing on making the street better.

stephengillie2• 11 years ago

Not everyone uses Cisco, some people use Juniper. Not everyone uses HP, many use Dell and others. Not everyone has a LAMP stack, some prefer SQL Server, IIS, and .NET.

There's many ways to differentiate. Maybe yours can be more featureful. Maybe it can be simpler; not everyone wants everything to be covered in options. Maybe you can iterate faster; maybe you can offer more stability and a more "corporate-aligned" update schedule.

Look for people who don't like the other person's product, find out why, learn from their mistakes, and try to serve users that they ignore.

0xdeadbeefbabe• 11 years ago

Popular opinion is that this does not apply to OS development[0].

[0] http://wiki.osdev.org/Beginner_Mistakes

vandeaq• 11 years ago

Build it better / different / more focused.

FeatureRush• 11 years ago

hard mode: the competitor is a YC company and you are not even in US

Would you answer the same?

codingdave• 11 years ago

Absolutely. If you aren't in the US, market it to wherever you are. And YC is a funding/networking/mentoring mechanism, not a super power. Don't be intimidated just because someone is YC.

stephengillie2• 11 years ago

So you get to learn from their mistakes, and you don't even have to start in the same market!

You could even advertise yourself as being like your competitor, but the local option. Sell them on the idea that by paying you instead of the competitor, the money would stay in the community instead of going to the USA.

mfenniak• 11 years ago

Totally. There's much more to the world than the US. Use your differences to your advantage -- you can be more localized.

For example, I'm working in a little niche with some US competitors. But my partners have found that being "Made in Canada" is actually helping us sell to our local Canadian small businesses. Additionally, we're going to do a French Canadian version of our app and market in Quebec -- our US competitors haven't touched multiple language support. These small differentiators will help make us a successful business; not a Google or an Apple, but, a source of revenue that we built by ourselves out of nothing.

Competition is a sign that you're on the same track others have identified as being viable. It's much better to have competition than to be all alone.

mrcold• 11 years ago

Wait for a new idea. Each of us has very specific talents that others don't. If you can find yours, you can be the one building it better. It's all about maximizing efficiency. Ideas come and go. You don't have to jump on the first one to succeed. Just on the one that makes the most sense.

jwatte• 11 years ago

Either build it anyway, or join them, or sit back and wait until you can use their thing. It depends on what your reasons for wanting to build it are.

adventured• 11 years ago

Someone will always be either building what you'd like to, or chasing after you with a competitive product trying to eat your lunch.

Any market worth being in, will have plenty of competition early on.

Primarily you have to ask yourself if you can add value to the segment you're talking about. If you have something worth-while to offer customers / users. Such questions remain regardless of the competition or lack thereof. If you've got something valuable to offer, build it. There is always an angle to take against a seemingly superior competitor, whether that's on price, features, support, customization, ease of use, et al.

metasean• 11 years ago

…better than you think you can build it?

If it's open-source, see where you can contribute, for example, documenting the code or adding a feature you think they're missing.

If it's not open-source, see if they're hiring. In your cover letter mention that you had a similar idea, but it differed in x, y, and z ways, and include the pros and cons of your your different features and implementation methods.

yeukhon• 11 years ago

Good points, but always depends right? I need this tool and it happens someone has done the dirty work and will take forever for me to DIY (it requires a lot of research and understand how X works). I used the tool, and I found a bug which affected usage, and I fixed it because the tool was opensource.

But I always note I don't actually decide what goes into that software. I can argue about why X feature is needed or why Y should be implemented in Z way, but I don't own that repo. Of course this is the beauty of open source just fork it (with the cavaet of watch the license which many probably doesn't care or doesn't have the knowledge to understand what X license mean to a user and to a contributor). But if I were to test my own ability and feel proud "yes I build it from scratch" I will build one from scratch. There is just that one idea that "I wish I was famous and getting tons of likes and respects because I built something that hundreds of developers are benefiting, being original creator vs a contributor.

thaumaturgy• 11 years ago

Be relieved that you have one less project to accomplish in your lifetime and move on to the next thing you'd like to do.

INTPenis• 11 years ago

If another app solves all the issues I set out to solve in my own app, and is in a language I am comfortable with, then I would try it out and see if I could contribute somehow.

Then again I only program as a hobby and everything I make is open so I have no financial motive to compete.

SpendBig2• 11 years ago

Have they deployed yet? Otherwise, build to ship first. Be first and expand based on your users/buyers input. Motivate yourself to deploy asap.

mgold• 11 years ago

To quote Alan Cooper, you don't want to be first to market, you want to be best to market. Build something great and let your opponent make the painful first inroads.

SpendBig2• 11 years ago

I believe there is no market for a single idea, you create a market by pleasing them day after day. And imo the best way is to ship asap, get the feedback, adjust en please.

But, it ofcourse depends on what your building, the info i miss in de main question asked.

rabbyte• 11 years ago

Nobody cares about calling dibs. People will move to the product that provides the best value; a subjective assessment that is constantly being re-evaluated as conditions are ever-changing. Also, execution never looks the same even if the ideas are identical.

If you think you can build something of value for people and you care about the problem then do it or join others already doing it. If a competitor makes a mistake, learn, and if they succeed, adapt. Everything else is a distraction from solving actual problems.

itaysk• 11 years ago

I don't think there are a lot of ideas that are so original that no one else came up with them. Chances are someone is already working on your idea regardless of what your idea is. You have the benefit of knowing who that competitor is. Shouldn't stop you, but encourage you.

bink-lynch• 11 years ago

Check this 'It can turn out ok' comment[0] from this post[1]:

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663904 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663203

bane• 11 years ago

Build it anyway, gain experience.

You know how there's only one personal computer platform because the other guys all gave up? Oh right, there's a bunch! Because different things can fill different niches, your take on the problem might fill some slightly different, but large demographic.

angersock• 11 years ago

I'll go one further:

Build your version, less better, and then just kick their ass in business.

Apple was eaten alive by shitty IBM clones in the PC wars. SGI and Sun were decimated by commodity hardware. Linux destroyed a lot of high-end OSs and platforms.

You don't have to be better to do better.

TheHeasman• 11 years ago

There are more variables in the success of a product than just whether "something is built better".

- Product personality (aka voice)

- Initial Target Market's propensity to be enthusiastic about your product

- And much more.

Elepsis• 11 years ago

Why are you building this project?

If it is to learn something, the answer is obvious: build it anyway. You will still learn pretty much all of the things you otherwise would have.

If it is because you feel that the world needs this thing to exist, and it'll become a better place because it does: see if you can contribute to the other people's work. If not, see if what they're doing meets that need and be happy that other people shared your vision of a problem to be solved.

If it's because you wanted to make a company and earn a living: keep going. There are thousands of niches in businesses. You can find yours.

Delmania• 11 years ago

Keep building it, but don't release until the other people do. This will do a few things.

First, it will vet out the market of the product. We are told to look for something new and innovative, but truth be told, the best way to predict the success of a product is to analyze the performance of similar product.

Second, it will give you some insights on areas within your own product to improve as well as ideas on how to differentiate.

jalfresi• 11 years ago

Contribute.

inguinalhernia• 11 years ago

How many things are brand new and innovative? Most aren't, most are iterations, or just a more successful effort at something that has been done before.

If you want to build it, build it anyway. Build it for passion, for the experience, for interest, or for any other reason. Or don't, that is ok too.

yesimahuman• 11 years ago

Very few people go the distance with their projects. If you think you'll be someone that does, then go for it. We've had the biggest companies to startups enter our space, and many already in it before we started. The difference, I think, is that few have the courage or focus to push hard on it day after day for years at a time.

neilellis2• 11 years ago

What she/he said.

kls• 11 years ago

This is what I was thinking well staffed and funded projects have a high rate of failure, bootstrapped and underfunded projects have an even higher rate of failure. The odds are that project will never hit the market in the first place.

willwhitney• 11 years ago

Help.

neilellis2• 11 years ago

As the T-Shirt says: http://www.headlineshirts.net/its-all-in-the-execution-t-shi...

It's all about the execution. If two people have a great idea the winner will be the one who executed better.

i.e. They scaled better, they used appropriate tools, they had a functioning team, they moved first, they listened to customers, they pivoted and stayed agile, they remained focussed on their goal etc. etc.

On the other hand, some products have network effect, which can make them hard to assail once they've got momentum.

Also don't forget the 10x 'rule' - you need to be 10x better than an existing product if you're doing the same as an established product.

As others have mentioned you may also be attacking different market segments e.g. business/consumer, geographical region, age group, etc.

Come to think of it, aren't there one or two books on the subject ;-)

zxcvvcxz• 11 years ago

It's your call man. As another poster mentioned, it really is all in the execution. If you don't believe you can compete and out-execute on some worthwhile dimension, then give up.

Otherwise quit second guessing yourself and get back to work.

spinlock• 11 years ago

Someone has always built what you're building. The only real question is do you know who they are. It's actually a great exercise to find the last founder (or two) who tried to execute your idea and figure out why they failed. Very often it's timing so it will make a lot of sense to try again if you think the world has changed in a way that will make your idea succeed this time.

zw123456• 11 years ago

What if Zuckerberg gave up because someone already made Myspace? Or what if Bill Gates decided not to build Windows because Apple already built the Mac?

astrodust• 11 years ago

Second mover advantage is a thing. Just ask anyone who's a competitive cyclist: Being able to draft behind someone and then break out at the finish is a huge benefit.

The first mover has to work really, really hard to get ahead and stay there.

thekevan• 11 years ago

Think of the mini-van. Chrysler is credited with introducing the revolutionary vehicle style. Now every car manufacturer has at least one, sometimes a couple mini-vans in their lineup and they all make a bunch of money of them. What if all those manufactures had said, "Naw, they already made it, we're not going to."

So my response is, "So what". Build it anyway.

Mz• 11 years ago

How passionate are you about it? What do you want out of doing this? Why were you doing this? Do those reasons still apply?

Execution is everything is a meme in part because execution reveals hidden assumptions we did not know we had. Two people who nominally set out to do the same thing, are probably not actually doing the SAME thing. Just like there are millions of different cars that can all be called "cars" and yet have many differences, projects can nominally be the same thing and yet not really.

mamcx• 11 years ago

According to the book "12 laws of marketing", that is a good thing. Mean exist a market, and somebody is already targeting them.

Is like food stores cluster in a location, is easier if exist a way for the customers to see "look, here is where food can be buy!"...

---- Also:

Not only somebody else is building it, many must already do it... is very unlikely somebody truly open a "new market".

---

The same book say you must be the #1 in a market. Failing that (like the 99% case) you must create a niche that make you the #1.

For example:

You can't be the #1 beer seller

But,

You can be the #1 beer with fruit flavors seller.

---

I before stop to do like a dozen of projects, scared by MS, Google, and others when them announce some stuff (that sometimes, only vaguely :( ) were similar to my ideas.

Now? I regret all that! None of the stuff they do was even closer to the style I was looking for...

Now, I lost my opportunity to do fun/side projects (now, need to bring money to the table). I'm trying to build 2 side projects, and despite are "common" and I move slooowwwww (responsibilities!) I don't worry anymore: Is more likely I will fail because myself, and even if I build a "copy-cat" is clear that I will bring something else to the table, just because I'm not the others...

So, don't stop ever because what are others doing.

meira• 11 years ago

Copy him and do better. He probably copied someone else, too. Who performs better, wins.

umanghome• 11 years ago

Build it anyway. You'll become many times the person you were before you started building it.

bernadus_edwin• 11 years ago

You should stop, and research the competitor product. Try use it for few days. After that, you will use the most suitable product for yourself, either competitor or yours.

jbpetersen• 11 years ago

Build essentially the same thing with a different scope.

Figure out how to make the same thing more general purpose, more specific purpose, or different specific purpose.

Just make sure your version is different enough to avoid the trap of people using the other version because it's "good enough".

Or find a way to collaborate with them.

davismwfl• 11 years ago

Just build it. I learned the hard way that worrying about other people is useless, just execute. If you focus on executing and they worry about you, you will win. So make their goal to focus on you and yours to focus on clients. In the end clients will choose.

Rarely is the market so small only a few can survive, and if it is that small, you are thinking too small. Markets worth going after can support multiple companies.

pknerd• 11 years ago

At the end of the day you are giving another choice to people. Good or bad, it's up to you.

mtshadow• 11 years ago

The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best.

craiggess• 11 years ago

what if you don't know someone else is building it? Does it matter if its already out there? And if so aren't there intellectual property laws out there so people can't steal or use some one else's idea?

Seth_R• 11 years ago

Keep on building it and make it happen.

We wrote two blog posts that you might find useful if you're in this kind of situation:

1. Why you should share your “secret” startup idea with anyone who will listen:

http://www.kilometer.io/blog/why-you-should-share-your-secre...

2. Don’t build anything until you have a clear startup mission

http://www.kilometer.io/blog/dont-build-anything-until-you-h...

Ask HN: What do you do if someone is already building what you wanted to build?

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