Yesterday I spent pretty much the whole day working on one of our products. Towards the end of the day I found out that someone just launched something with a very similar idea behind it. It made my heart sink a little.
Back at the start of this year, before byflock was formed and we’d decided on what ideas to pursue, I was doing a bit of research around another idea I had. A major player had recently launched together with some other big players who had entered the market. I debated whether it was even worth doing the research and started thinking about how you decide whether or not to pursue something which already exists, or if it’s simply not worth doing. How different does a product or idea have to be? I wrote a post on the matter and an old colleague of mine, Elizabeth, commented on it. Part of it goes like this:
I think to start up something new commercially you don’t HAVE to do something different but you do have to do something WELL. That can become a point of difference to your competitor in itself over time.
There is a lot of truth in what Liz wrote and I later followed up that post with a couple more, Day 009 | Pros & cons and Day 012 | Worth remembering, the latter inspired by that everything that exist today does so because someone somewhere said that they were going go for it. I remember writing that post and thinking about plates. I can’t recall why but I was thinking about that no matter how many plates that already exist there are always people out there who keep coming up with ideas for new plates. It doesn’t matter how many white, blue or other coloured plates that already exist, people keep coming up with new ideas for patterns and forms and they go off and they make plates.
Though our market and business area is different from plates there’s still something in how people keep making plates. If there is demand there is a market. It might be a niche market, perhaps not a very profitable one, but there is a market. I haven’t seen anyone do what we are working on. Sure, there are variations of it but only the thing I spotted yesterday come close. But it’s not close enough for us to throw in the towel and even if it was I’m not sure we would. We really want to see this thing built and we’re going to get it done. It’s not a big product but more of an experiment to bring something that we really want to exist to life.
To go back to the point of how my heart sank and to whether or not to keep pursuing something after you find out that someone else has entered the market, it can be a tricky decision. But it can also be simple. After I learnt that someone had beat us to it yesterday I lost momentum for a bit. It’s frustrating to freelance as well as working on your own products as you’re constantly aware that things are moving too slowly. You should be spending more time on it. And you want to. When a competitor comes along that becomes even more apparent but it can be turned into a good thing.
If someone else is doing it there is probably something in the idea and chances are that they won’t crack it at the first stab. You got the benefit of seeing the approach that someone else has taken and compare that to what you had in mind. It can provide a useful reference point for how much you actually have left to do and with that clear it’s easier to compare what you’ve invested so far on your product and weigh it up against what’s left to do. Of course the threat from the direct competitor needs to be looked at but often there is a different angle that can be played, or a strength or focus that can be made stronger. And sometimes if the risk and cost is not too high it’s better to launch and see what might be than to spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been.
Tomorrow – Day 249 | A more structured approach to working
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/diegodalmaso/3263976449
