Someone has launched the same niche website idea as me. Do I abandon the idea?
I have spent the last few months developing a website which fills a specific niche market. It isn't unique by any stretch of the imagination, and there are similar sites all through the US and Canada. It is an interesting concept as it focuses on your local community, so I invested a lot of time developing the idea and am at a point where my site is almost finished and ready to "launch".
Last night I discovered that someone has had an almost identical idea and has already launched; my competitor has already had television and radio coverage. Our services and revenue model are almost identical.
I guess I am at a loss as to where to go next, and would like the suggestions from the HN community. Do I
* Ignore the other site and launch... Full steam ahead!
* Wait a month or so and see how the small niche market responds to the competitor to see if it's worth while me launching (essentially having him be my guinea pig)
* Abandon the idea. The sites are similar and the market is small.
Any comments, suggestions, or ideas welcome.
13 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] thread1) Can you differentiate yourself easily? Better looking site, smoother UI, and better performance are potentially low-hanging fruit. Better customer service (if it applies) can also help set you apart.
2) Were you planning to add features, or just go with what you've got? Your Same Niche Idea can become niche plus X, Y, and Z, making it no longer Same Niche Idea. Harder than #1, but worth considering. Evaluate, and perhaps go through another iteration of features (or two.)
3) Final one: can you simply outmarket them? Perhaps they're just as good, but you have a larger marketing budget, have better SEO, a stronger professional network, whatever. They've had some coverage, but that's not the end, obviously.
HTH.
If you are close to finishing, you might as well launch.
Competition means other people see an opportunity in your market too.
Who knows what the results will be? Maybe customers will resonate with your product. Maybe your product can be differentiated by better performance, better usability, or better service. Maybe customer feedback will lead to a pivot. Or maybe your site will lead to other opportunities.
The point is you are almost there. Make the jump and don't look back. If you haven't launched products in the past, the experience alone will be worth it.
My primary concern is that the idea up until now has cost me only a few hundred dollars for registrations as my business partner and I have done the coding and UI ourselves. Obviously the next step is the big jump into marketing which isn't going to be cheap.
I'm happy to spend the money on marketing (paper based primarily), however having someone else enter the market in the same space has made me a little nervous about how this could impact me.
We're actually based in Australia, so our market is much smaller than the US market.
Imagine this - You launch first. This competitor of yours launches the next day. If they still kick your ass by having a better product or marketing, then it doesn't matter if you launched first.
If the thought of a competitor entering the market makes you want to run, then you need to toughen up.
It's better to focus on your users anyway. The only way to think about competitors is to learn how to serve your users better. Competitors exist to do free market research for you.
Sorry to invoke a cliche, but at the stage you are, execution is all that matters.
If you're passionate about the concept then push ahead. The fact you have one competitor (or more) just validates you have a market.