First mover advantage is *usually* a disadvantage for startups

Agreed. If anything, "first movers" are often just "first validators": they pay the exploration costs and allow second movers to exploit their findings for free.

Must read : https://hbr.org/2001/10/first-mover-disadvantage

Interestingly enough almost all of these products made it way easier to do something compared to the competition:

Stripe = made it extremely easy for devs to implement payments
Zoom = made it extremely easy to join a conference (compared to Slack for eg)
MicroAcquire = made it really easy to browse SaaS for sale. Previously I had to go through a broker and sign NDAs.

Startup idea: Bot tells you similar successful companies before it even a thing.

This dovetails with advice I like to give, that it's usually a mistake to try to solve an unsolved problem with your startup idea. Most successful businesses, even in winner-take-all market, are solving a problem that other businesses have already solved pretty well. They're just doing it better, or in a unique way, or for a different audience, or at a cheaper price, etc.

It would be beneficial to the community if we can learn why it's "usually a disadvantage for startups" being a first mover advantage versus just a short list of examples.

Trying to sneak MicroAcquire in lol

In software there is always this idea, that you need to be the only one. That's not true in almost any other case. Look at how much people are selling fidget spinners, water bottles, t-shirts etc. And a lot of them are successful. The same is actually applicable for software. More than one solution can persist on the market.

Yes totally agree on this. I have also observed in case of micro/mini saas products there is no first mover advantage.

Counter example: AWS had the first mover advantage in cloud services, and it stayed about 7 years with no competition when it started, it is still now one of the most dominant providers

Though really ambitious, as Peter Thiel mentions it's being the last mover that matters.

Better brand positioning & marketing will always beat established products.

I am sure there are situations where being a first mover can be an advantage if the company iterates well they can grow on their finding.

They entered a validated market/need, so it totally makes sense 👌

Agreed! Also important to note that slack is only around because Amazon agreed to save it :)

But if that's the case then how do you suggest one can enter the market with a proposition if it is already covered by giants in their segments?

I believe this is true. Entering a segment with competitors and large TAM is always the best route.

Good one!

Yes, I completely agree. I've also seen that there is no first mover advantage in the case of micro/mini saas products.

I've fell flat on my face with this. Now, it's the first check I do whenever any idea pop-up in my brain.

All of us indie hackers are better off NOT being the first movers. The markets are usually brutal for new products or ideas.

The key is to enter a growing market with low competition (VERY HARD TO SPOT). I firmly believe that we can enter a big market with several players; and still make a good MRR to live a luxurious life.

It's 50/50
Apple Computers first in iPhone
Xerox is first in copiers
HP is first in printers
Ford is first in automobiles

Yeah, I'd say first-mover advantage is only good if it's the right moment. I remember hearing about this site called, "The Globe", which was basically Facebook in the 90s. At the time, I think they got the biggest IPO, somewhere in the billions. But within a couple of years the whole thing went bust. They started too early when Web2 wasn't invented, yet, so their value proposition and number of customers to match expectations was severely limited.

Fast-forward to 2004 and Zuckerberg launches Facebook. But even he wasn't first because Myspace was around. He just did it better at the right moment.

Proof that you don't need an original idea to make it big, you just need to take an existing solution and find a way to make it better. Too many of us are trying to find new problems to solve.

This isn’t how probabilities work.

Most winners were not first movers does NOT mean first movers do worse on average than all others.

Why? There are far fewer first movers than others. If this is hard to understand, ask this: are most 7ft tall people in the NBA? Are 7ft tall people at a disadvantage to get into the NBA? No and no.

Inspiring to see this thank you Andrew!

I've been one of those people, several times, who comes up with great ideas very early on. But too early, as the market for them simply doesn't exist - it does, but it doesn't know it. Acquiring those customers is very expensive, so as a bootstrapped startup you just can't afford it. I've failed a few times with this.

Better to let someone else go first, wake up the market, make some mistakes that you can learn from, and then,.... pow.. 2nd mover wins gold!

I think it is worth mentioning that you can leverage a known and successful startup by looking up what it could have but does not do because it would earn them < 10% of their revenue and simply do that because they will never do. Sometimes it is even simpler, they used to do that but now don't since it was too low of a revenue for them but there are some users who still need it.

I would put a lot of it down to marketing. Every product has been done, every product that is top of it's game, there is another product which is just as good if not better out there lingering. Getting traction is the hardest part. Some products get lucky but if you look at how all these brands marketed and positioned themselves, you'll see that it wasn't all luck, but cleverly orchestrated by marketing geniuses.

Absolutely agree. Being first on the market means you spend your budget educating your audience, making uses cases for future competitors, framing problems.

I'm currently working on a "first mover" kind of product. I agree it's a disadvantage, but I'm knowingly going for it because it's just fun to explore new ideas/solutions. I failed many times before, and I won't be surprised if I fail again, but comparing my current work day to the one I had while being employed on a full time job, I'm happy that I made this choice.
It is basically part of my sabbatical. I don't work long hours, I take "vacations" whenever I want so it is really hard to get burned out. Spending my time this way is much easier for me than searching for some other problem to solve.

I expect I will be back on a full time job in about a year when I spend most of my savings so I'm trying to enjoy as much as I can

For a start up I think I agree to say that the go to payment gateway is stripe. I head lots of stories about PayPal money is on hold. From my border to my old company, some cash has been hold by PayPal for no reason.

For small payment gateways companies, they all almost have the save transaction fees with no added feature. Stripe on the other hand have a larger community. I'm not Stripe biggest fan but from my experience and research Stripe is currently the best for all companies.

What do you mean by advantage is usually a disadvantage?

+1: Creating and educating a market is damn hard, and requires a lot of money!

hot take: 0 - 1 is a terrible book for indie hackers.

Unless you have access to capital.