Build something that already exists / goliath competitor
Would it make sense to build something that already exists? I see goliath competitors with track records awards and thousands of customers listed, 200 integrations. They have an advantage, budget.
Would it even make sense to think about spending time building something like them?
I also see subpar solutions in my opinion that have blogpoets on how they share income between employees and then think why this product generates so much revenue. I do think i could build the same and better in those tegerds. Those profucts are not persee golisths but seem to be more nice market.
Just curious as to what other indiehackers think about this.
I think you need to get more specifics about these goliaths before doing anything.
What are they doing poorly?
Are there any customer segments they're leaving out?
Most importantly: is what they're doing poorly actually a problem for their customers?
For example, maybe driving to walmart is a hassle for a lot of customers, but do they actually care enough to spend extra money / switch to something else to get rid of this hassle?
Furthermore, avoid direct competition unless you're building something revolutionary that can't be replicated easily. You always want to target nooks and crannies the goliaths leave out due to their generalized nature.
To give an example, I'm developing an AI API. There's many that exist in the market already, and there's one (OpenAI's GPT-3 and Amazon Sagemaker) that are quite large in this area.
However, the advantages I offer appeals to a userbase that's less technical and has less money to throw around, as well as being more specific in what I offer (AI API for developers) rather than being more generalized like Amazon.
This will also depend on the size of the market. I've noticed larger markets allow more room to be left untouched by goliaths whereas smaller markets are much harder to compete in.
I think it depends, in part, your intentions. If your intention is to compete with and “kill” the goliath, I’d want to be damn sure you have something that they couldn’t quickly replicate at their scale. As I’m sure you’ve heard a thousand times, execution is king.
If your intention is to build something that solves your own problem, helps you learn and grow a skill, or just have fun building. Then I say go for it!
People worry too much about building something "unique". If you were a restauranteur, would you forgo launching a new restaurant because pizza restaurants already exist? If you think there's room in the market for you then jump in and wrestle a share.
Every business that exists, EVERY ONE has flaws. Maybe they focus on a specific audience and neglect another. Maybe their mobile offering is lacking. Maybe their free plan doesn't offer enough. Maybe it's not available in a region. Maybe their UX is garbage. Maybe it's lacking a feature. Whatever it is, that can be your USP. Facebook didn't give up on launching because MySpace already existed. Tesla realised "goliaths" weren't focussing enough on EV's so they went after that.
Having goliaths in the market can often be helpful. It shows that the market is there. They've already primed an audience and often the holes they leave are glaring.