HN Explorer

Ask HN: How to deal with competitors?

3 points by Sir_Cmpwn ↗ HN
There is another service in our space. We thought the way to compete was to be better than they are. However, we have gone far above and beyond that - our offering is so much better than theirs that any informed user choosing our competetion would be absurd, and still users swear by the competing service, and it grows more popular each day.

What should we do?

4 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 22.4 ms ] thread
johnrob
Ask users of your competitor's product why they prefer it.
[dead] seefriek
> our offering is so much better than theirs that any > informed user choosing our competetion would be absurd

Betamax was "better" than VCR; any "informed user" would have picked Betamax. But VCRs delivered what most customers wanted, when they wanted it, at a quality & feature level they could live with, at a price they were willing to pay. And they had better marketing.

Your definition of "better" obviously isn't correct. You need to fix that. You also caveat with "informed user". You might think about that as well. Are you effectively communicating to potential users of the superiority of your platform? Do they believe you? Do they care? Frankly, it sounds like you may have developed the perfect platform for you, and are delivering it to a market that's looking for something different. Find out what makes their customers swear by their service and focus on that.

penguinlinux
Your competitor is doing something else. Better advertising, better customer support, better prices, find out what is it that these customers like. Remember your customers are not only buying a service but a relationship with you.

Any links to your company and your competitor, so that we can compare you two

kris-jagasia
assume you are already aggressively targeting their users? (Facebook ads targeting can be very helpful for this purpose)