It’s 8am on Sunday morning and I’m lying in bed going through my Twitter and LinkedIn feed. An update catches my eye. I click the link and then go “Argh!”.
It’s not the first time. It’s happened before. I’ve come across something that looks interesting and – still happily unaware – I’ve clicked to read more, only to be faced with that. A site or post about someone else working on a similar product.
Every time my reaction is the same. Its starts out with an “Argh!”. Goes through the “We should be first”, “We have to work faster. Harder. Be better. Stronger”.
Then the fear kicks in. A slight “Perhaps our product isn’t unique enough?”. “Are we too late?”. “Perhaps there’s too many in that market?”. And, occasionally, there’s the “What on earth am I doing spending my time and money on this which may never fly?!”.
But, then slowly I come around. The fear changes and fuels my determination. I’ve been through this a number of times for each of our products and every time I end up being more motivated by the posts or sites that I see. A bit of competition is after all good. It shows there are others who believe in the market. If they have/ get traction there is a good chance that we will too.
I’ve yet to click on a link that takes me to something that is doing what we are doing. One day I’m sure I will but so far I haven’t. So, all we have to do is keep on working on the products we’re so excited about and see where it takes us. There are no guarantees for how this will turn out, but there never are in life. Until you try you don’t know, but at least we know that we are not the only ones who thinks the area we’re in is a promising one.
Thank you Jamie Brooker for the support this morning.
@annadahlstrom it's validation… Just gotta do it better!
— Jamie Brooker (@jamiebrooker) August 11, 2013
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/lordgordon/6872609548
