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Ask HN: What is the best way to find out if your startup idea is already taken?

18 points by marknutter ↗ HN
Whenever I come up with an idea for a startup or small project, I inevitably have to hit google, the crunchbase, hacker news, etc., to find out if it has already been done and if so how well. This process is pretty hit or miss for me, though, and already I've built something I thought I had scoped out the competition for only to get sideswiped by some better funded or better implemented effort. What's the best way to do this research, and would it make sense for there to be a web service out there that aggregated all the startups, weekend projects, side projects, dead pooled websites, etc. to make it easier to do market research for our new ideas? I almost think a service that provided this information reliably is itself a good startup idea, but I just want to know what the general consensus is on it.

16 comments

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jacquesm
I wouldn't worry about it at all.

So what if it is 'taken', it's not like someone has a monopoly on ideas that have already been used before.

Even stronger you can assume that your idea has been taken.

When google launched their search engine, 'search' as an idea had been taken. They redefined it to 'really good search' and the rest if history. Facebook wasn't the first social network and I suspect they won't be the last (though they may still be the biggest).

Do the very best you can when you execute your idea and then keep doing that, ever refining it. As time goes by the headstart - if you're the first mover - will increase, if you're not the first mover the distance to the leader should decrease. Relentlessly focus on making your site the best and you'll be able to take on even an established competitor. It won't be easy, but it is doable.

As for that search example, google now has competition. DuckDuckGo is very very tiny, but they're doing some small things better than google.

Search done 'a little bit better' apparently is still a valid idea, even so many years after 'search' was supposedly taken as an idea.

Competition is good for you, it keeps you sharp.

elliottcarlson
Not only is competition good for you - but it is something you should expect. Whether there is already competition in your market, or it is completely niche, you will need to strive to do things better and make sure you meet your target user base needs.

This still holds true if those competitors are better funded; just build a better product.

marknutter
Oh, I'm not worried that competition exists; I'm worried about competition I'm not aware exists. I want to be able to find out who all is trying to do something similar to my idea, and how well they are doing it so that I can pivot where necessary.
stakent
There may be some competition in stealth mode too. They are intentionally hiding from you and me.

But I don't think there is something to worry too much. Treat offerings of your competition as a free market research and validation.

I'll tell you something. It's a secret. I'm aiming at the market where I've found more than 40 competitors in my country only.

Why?

Becuse it validates that there is market.

jacquesm
If you have to go looking for them that's proof there is room. And there will always be competitors that you never knew existed. But then, neither do your customers.
staunch
I agree in general, but there are definite exceptions. Most solutions are mediocre at best. That means you have a good shot if you can do a better than mediocre job.

Sometimes though there is someone who clearly understands the problem as well (or better) and whose solution is genuinely great. If a big part of your motivation is to solve an unsolved problem this is going to suck the wind out of you.

So much of the world's problems are unsolved (or solved badly) that it doesn't make sense to go head-to-head on a problem that's already being solved really well. At least not for a tiny startup that needs every advantage it can get.

Of course just because you don't see any good competitors doesn't mean there won't be:

"Looking just at existing competitors can give you a false sense of security. You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not just what you can see people doing. A corollary is that you shouldn't relax just because you have no visible competitors yet. No matter what your idea, there's someone else out there working on the same thing." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

stakent
Bulls eye. What are they working on?

'They' means visible competition and, probably more important, startups.

This is the source of my own worries.

jacquesm
Normally speaking when a company is big, well entrenched and executing at the top of their game you're aware of them and not wondering 'what if this idea is taken?'.

The simple fact that you are wondering that means that there is room for a competitor.

You still have to do your market research and map the competition but don't let their mere existence stop you.

staunch
Again, in general I agree...but there are frequent exceptions.

The most impressive competitor might still be up-and-coming (not necessarily big and entrenched). You also may simply not know about them, even if millions of other people do.

wushupork
I wouldn't worry about it either. Just as the jacquesm stated - Google launched when there were tons (infoseek, yahoo, excite, microsoft, etc) other search engines. When Ford introduced the model T there were other car companies. When Michael Dell sold his first custom made computer, there were many existing computer manufacturers.

Ultimately if you can build something that is a better product - through price, experience or customer service, people will want yours and not your competitor. I wouldn't worry about it.

Personally I would worry if your idea was so far fetched no one's even thought about it.

bond
Tell everybody...
philwelch
Think from your user's perspective. How is your user going to find out that you exist? Apply that same process. If you find competitors that way, beat them. If you don't find competitors that way, neither will your user.

Being sideswiped by a better funded or better implemented effort you didn't see coming is a problem, but not one worth worrying about. Worry about making your effort the best it can be. If it makes it easier, just assume you have a better funded, better implemented competitor in stealth mode.

Would it make sense for there to be a web service out there that aggregated all the startups, weekend projects, side projects, dead pooled websites, etc. to make it easier to do market research for our new ideas?

Yes, but only so all those startups and weekend projects could advertise. And maybe not even then, because people who have the time and inclination to go around looking for new startups to make their life easier already read all the blogs that announce that kind of thing.

Travis
I think this is a great response. Especially because once you've figured out how to find your competitors, you've discovered the common channels that your customers will come through. This allows you to identify how you're going to get traction, which is all kinds of good when you're early stage.
mixmax
when Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic there were other formidable competitors already in the game. His market research consisted of a phone call to book a trans atlantic flight with British Airways. After holding the line for half an hour without getting through he concluded that either their customer service sucked in which case he could do better, or there were so many people wanting to fly across the atlantic that they clogged up the phones in which case there would be plenty of customers for him.

The point is that businessplans, market research and information gathering on competitors is not as good a use of your time as simply trying it out. You don't need to be first, or even best. You just need to put something out there and work with the feedback you get.

Note that successful entreprensurs don't have better ideas than anyone else, they just have more of them and they do something about it. Which is why many of them have several failed ventures behind them. See Gabriel Weinberg's post that's on the frontpage right now for an example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803809

so just do it. Get something out there and show it to us.

andrewtbham
I agree this is a problem... the biggest problem with searching google and crunch base... is that if it's a nascent market, it's not clear what words to search for.
photon_off
The things I've been working on for the the past year solve exactly this problem. Mainly, I've been interested in connecting information between various websites. A subset of this goal is to cross reference a person to cruchbase, then jump to their site, then view its rankings on Quantcast, Alexa, etc. And, for any URL, I want to find the most similar websites, and repeat the process there.

The tools I've come up with are: http://www.moreofit.com and http://www.dashler.com/toolbar/

If you find one moderately popular example of something similar to your idea, plug the URL into moreofit.com. It will find you the most mathematically similar websites (based on Delicious tag vectors). There are other advanced options from there that I'll leave to you to figure out.

You can use the toolbar to scope out sites with unheard of productivity. That is, open the toolbar on the URL you're scoping out, and use the moreofit.com shortcut to view similar sites. Or you can use the Delicious shortcut to jump to the result on delicious and see how popular it is there. Or you can use the Quantcast/Alexa/etc shortcut to view traffic stats of that domain. Or you can use Backtype/UberVU to see various discussions of that URL. Or you can use the Twitturly shortcut to view tweets that contain that URL. Or you can the Reddit shortcut to view the top submissions from that domain. Or you can search within that website using Google/Bing/etc.

Hopefully you'll find these tools helpful. /shamelessplug

I've been using these tools for a few months now, and I can tell you that the internet is far more vast than you could ever believe. It's likely something extremely similar to your idea has been implemented, but just never gained traction.