Disaster strikes! Competitor launches the same week as me

Imagine you build up your product for launch, then start to slowly announce it and getting feedback...

Then, disaster! Out of nowhere, a competitor appears! They have (what appears to be) more features, give away their product for free), and blast a ton of marketing posts throughout your target community.

The despair, the uncertainty, the fear of losing out come easily, and motivation to push on seems to vanish in a puff of smoke. What now?

This is exactly what happened to me with API Bakery. I charge a non-trivial price ($50/mo, $500/yr), and it's a much harder sell when there's a similar solution that's completely free.

Well, for a few moments (okay, might've lasted a bit more...) I was overwhelmed with the negative thoughts mentioned above. Then I remembered why I was building this, for who, and what my long-term plan was. I relaxed, thought about it from a positive perspective and realized, if anything, I'm in a better position now. Here's why:

1. As I was looking at the competitor's product, I thought "nicely done, but I don't think that's the best way to do it" at lot of times. Taken together, these showed a different vision and different value story than competition. Yes, it's going to be a harder sell, but the products are not equivalent.

2. I also thought about the price a lot. Compared to the value I'm bringing (estimated between $1k and $10k per year), the price difference between my product ($50/mo or $500/yr) and theirs ($0) is negligible. The larger problem is the community (easier to attract people if they don't have to pay).

3. Though they will attract people that don't want to pay, I wouldn't benefit from those users anyways. And having more products means more people will become aware of those kinds of products. The competitor's marketing will help me as well.

4. Free market research! All the public outreach and feeback they get is free market research for me :-)

5. Although it's the most direct competitor, it's not like there isn't any competition. So, nothing I wasn't expecting anyway.

So if (or when) this happens to you, don't despair. Worry about your customers, not your competition.