Ask HN: How to deal with bigger competitors?
Hello HN,
I'm facing a huge dilemma and I would get used for some advice.
With a friend, we start developing an app for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gyms in which the core features are the management of the classes, the attendance as well as the subscriptions and the payments, plus other features related to the sport itself.
This starts as a pet project which was an excuse to keep in touch, experiment with new technologies and most importantly have fun. Now we are evolving it into a business idea that we would like to pursue with a bit more focus and care to be able to eventually make some money out of it.
Everything started based on these promises so we didn’t do any research beforehand, especially in understanding the market and the competitors. Huge mistake.
We already have a pilot gym that is using it successfully, and we are about moving to the next step and adding a new gym to the network, in doing so we start doing some research and we spot a very big competitor that have already implemented all the features that are also in our roadmap and I’m not afraid to say that we panic a little bit.
What we should do now? Is this project just not worth the effort anymore? How do you approach such an issue?
This starts as a pet project which was an excuse to keep in touch, experiment with new technologies and most importantly have fun.
Given that, it sounds like you've already won, no matter what happens next.
As far as advice goes, I'll just leave a couple of book recommendations.
https://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Market-Leaders-Customers-D...
https://www.amazon.com/Differentiate-Die-Survival-Killer-Com...
https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/00...
https://www.amazon.com/Its-that-Small-Fast-Slow/dp/006662053...
First, what is that pilot gym paying you, and what does the competition charge? If this is a freemium play, research the percentage of apps that make money. It's currently basically none.
In the heyday, a lot of people made money in apps, but that's just a rumour echoing through time now, and is no longer reality in the present day.
Second, your mistake was not conducting market and competitor research first. You wanted to jump in and start coding. Business doesn't work like that. Construction is the very last step, not the first step.
Third, yes it's unlikely to be worth continuing, due to the winner take all nature of networks (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, vs who?). The only antidote is to pivot to a space that that big (and therefore well funded) competitor isn't targeting.
You may be able to compete based on factors other than current feature set, including but not limited to customer service / support and usability/user experience.