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Found my business idea already out there

6 points by injb ↗ HN
I had an idea for what I thought (and still think) would be a great monetizeable service. It was different enough from anything I had ever seen I this space that I was excited to work on it.

After I developed the idea a bit, while doing some research, I found the service already. It's exactly my idea down to the finest detail that I can see. It looks like it's been around for a few years without crazy success (I hadn't heard of it and didn't find it that easily).

The question is, do I take this as an indication that it's a waste of time, or should I take it as vindication of my idea and go for it?

If I had anything about my idea that was better I would be happy. But they appear to have thought of all the clever details that I thought would make it work. Id make it look different and would market it more aggressively, but I'd be building substantially a clone of what they have.

Technologically it's pretty straightforward and wouldn't be a massive investment of time.

Whats your advice?

13 comments

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connor11528
I’d just use their service and move on. You could build it for fun but it doesn’t sound like a great idea to make a worse version of something already out there that’s not even doing that well. If you think you can do it better and grow the market then go for it
injb
Thanks. Just to clarify, I wasn't looking for this to use. I was looking to build it for other people, to solve a fairly well known problem.

It's one of those things that needs a critical mass to really work well, like a social network (though its not a social network)

hitsurume
You should stop building immediately. Find someone who would pay for your service right now (pre-ordering your product) OR find someone using your competitors service and find out if they like it, or need something better, build that better product and see if it coverts the competition.
dotcoma
> It looks like it's been around for a few years without crazy success.

You said all you need to say.

sf4lifer
Assume the people running the other service are geniuses that have tried everything feasible. Figure out why they haven't achieved crazy success. If there is something you can differentiate on with that as the starting point then pursue the idea.
injb
I think this is a really good point. When I was younger, I would probably have told myself that they haven't been successful because they're not smart enough or didn't try hard enough. Now I've been around the block and I think more like they way you're suggesting.
zn44
Almost any idea you'll ever have will be out there, usually with small differences not exactly the same but still pretty close.

I would not be bothered and continue working, if you build it right and speak to your customers your idea will evolve 100 times before you realise

rozenmd
Find customers that need a solution, talk to them.

There were 200 alternatives when I started OnlineOrNot, and while it wasn't easy, it still attracted customers.

ianpurton
> and would market it more aggressively,

You could set up a landing page and test your marketing, if you get the traction you hope for, build the product, if not then let it die.

Quinzel
Ask yourself the following 4 questions:

1. Is it valuable? (How/why?)

2. Is it rare?

3. Is it easy for others to imitate it?

4. How are you going to exploit your idea in such a way that you can have a competitive advantage over your competition?

Also though, fifth bonus question, if you spend time working on this idea, is that an opportunity wasted for you to spend that time pursuing a better idea? Just because it is going to be technologically straightforward and not too time consuming doesn’t mean it’s a good way to spend your time if you could spend your time doing something better.

injb
Great questions, thanks. They are all things I've been asking myself. 1: I think it's valuable, yes. 2: yes it's very rare as far as I can tell.

3 & 4, that's hard to answer but I think that every startup faces that problem. Yet, someone usually wins.

5: I don't have ideas I think are good very often, so until I think of a better one I'm not really sacrificing any big opportunities. And I kind of feel I'm more likely to discover better ideas if I start working on something. So you might have made me answer my own question by asking that!

bruceb
Can you tell us the general what area is this in?

Questions also to answer:

Type of biz: B2B, consumer? Online I assume? or is there also an offline component?

Biz model: Is it a reoccurring rev biz or one time sale?

The competition: There is a single company currently offering the service? You have any idea of their revenue or how many customers they serve? What is the background of the people running it.

The market: How big it is.

Curios to what it is. Can also msg if you want.

injb
B2B, online, recurring rev.

Yes I only found one company doing what I had in mind. But I had to dig a bit to even find them.

In truth I don't have the faintest idea how much revenue they're getting but I can do some leg work to get an estimate. The founders both seem to be involved in other things and I suspect it is a "let's see where this goes" kind of side project for them.