How do you proceed after saying "That was my idea!"

So with our product EveryMon, there are at least three competitors, one of which has millions in the war chest to spend.

They also generate a huge amount of bad will and distaste with potential customers because of the deliberate choices they have made.

We can compete by choosing to be the different option, same solution but executed better, we also don't have to spend a lot of money on educating people on "why" our solution is good and needed, we know the demand is there.

Think of the first vacuum cleaner sales reps, they'd have to teach people the value of the product, when they were new and a pioneering tech, now everyone knows what they do but we still see lots of brands of those products.

First, I think it's totally natural to feel discouraged when you see your idea already being worked on. It's especially daunting when you see that the competitor has been working on it for years.

But I agree with the comments that it's a very good sign of validation that the market exists. When I see no existing companies for an idea, I usually interpret that as a sign that the market doesn't actually exist for that idea.

Also, I agree that execution is worth far more than ideas.

I would add that what is also important is your product differentiation and positioning. Whenever I have an idea, there are almost always existing products. But I only am really excited about an idea if I have multiple unique points of view on how it would be substantially different/better than existing products.

Now, if I came across an existing product that already incorporated everything I planned to do differently/better, then I might decide that the idea is no longer worth pursuing.

Hope that helps and good luck!

My Reaction: "Wow this person validated my idea at no cost to me, now I can work on my project and know there is a market for it"

As @Primer already said: execution is key.

Also, try to find a problem what your app solves. Ideas change over time as your product evolves. Hopefully that problem occurs for other people as well. It is even better if that problem happens often, because they need a solution.

I regret the things I never finished, never launched , or sometimes worse - launched but then gave up to soon. This is just me, but I think this game we all play is not luck, but played by learning, and stacking the bricks. If we never give ourselves a real chance flex and grow our muscles (in ways we haven't before) - then they atrophy.

So I guess my advice would be keep at it to a point you are proud of yourself, and confident you took it to a place you will always be happy with. Don't have that annoying thought in 5 years "Man.. I think if I just had implemented THAT I could have really had something there".

Escape competition through authenticity. I recently read an interesting article on this concept.

https://nav.al/competition-authenticity

co-founder @ scribbl.co

If this happens to me, I would be happy because if there are existing competitor (with paying users) it's likely an indication that there is market for that idea.

So I will double down with development and marketing.

When I started https://groupleads.net - I experienced something like this and it didn't affect me from carrying on with my own thing.

Like others have said, idea is nothing, implemention is the key.

I hope this help you.

Keep going. Don't stop. Don't get distracted by those. Does matter if there are same products in the market. It just give users more choices. In the end some will buy from you and some won't.

If what you want to build is truly new/novel, you'd want to ask yourself why nobody else is working on a solution. This is why it's a good idea to build things for yourself, because at the very least you are going to make a tool that at least one person gets value from. You don't have to build just for yourself, but it's certainly a good start.

In terms of other existing products having a more robust feature set and design, that is to be expected. They've been in the market longer than you have, and hopefully for their sake they've taken into account user feedback to improve their product and design. Once you've launched and start getting feedback you'll start catching up, and likely learning a lot of similar lessons that they learned.

Because of your own unique perspective on the problem you'll bring something different that other people haven't. If you're persistent in trying to keep improving what you've built, you'll eventually have something that resonates with a group of people. Perhaps what you build will click with them better than the other options in the market. Or maybe they'll pick you just by sheer chance.

There are very few products that are truly winner take all, so don't be afraid if you see similar products out there.

Ideas are like fruit on a tree. Instead of climbing to get the nice and ripe fruit at the top, most people usually spend there time fighting with each other for the low hanging fruit - the best of which is usually already picked.

Those fighting for the low hanging fruit, often tell the climbers that they are wasting their time and tell them those hard to reach ideas will never work. "Its so risky, is there a market for that?, there's no promise of reward, that'll never work, your wasting your time and energy," In their mind, they have justified that for them the best strategy is to just jump with everyone else for the low hanging fruit and hope they get lucky, so they find it hard to rationalize the argument of the climbers - and perhaps sometimes even falsely attribute success in that endeavour to "luck".

There is Mcdonalds and Burger King. Coca Cola and Pepsi.
The world is huge, there is a market for multiple similar solutions.
As long as you can market to at least a bit different target audience, then it's cool.
You are most likely to always find an existing solution already on the market. You just need to grow a thicker skin.
Don't see competition as an issue, see it as a market validation (they exist, so the market exists), use them to your own advantage (use their offer and ideas to improve yours), feed on their weaknesses (try to determine their biggest 1-2 weaknesses and build your brand around it).
Good luck!

You can also take it as a bit of validation that the thing you are working on needs to exist in the world in my opinion.

How many different supermarket companies do you see on the streets? There are many, they didn't stop because they had one competitor.

I say go for it, make it different in your own way and if possible, make it better than them.

This is where differentiation can make a difference.

Good luck!

Ideas alone are worthless.

You could say "That is an implementation of my idea!". And starting with that you can see if it succeeded or not, if it can be improved or not, if you can take another approach when implementing your solution, etc. I don't think that when the first car was made anyone could sanely say: "That was my idea, a box with wheels that moves by itself!".

If a product based on the same idea exists it means that you can already know what you have to beat in order to offer more value to a user than he can already get.

Always keep in mind that competition is good for the customer and you either create something really BIG and have a monopoly over the entire world or there is enough space for 2,3,4 or more companies doing the same thing.

You don't : (

You may have had the idea... but THEY made it.

It's who makes it that wins.

Speaking of ideas you can steal and use, check out my FREE ebook with 101 New Business Ideas To Steal and Use:

https://logobly.com/ideas

the difference is you can innovate far faster than them look for example FB any improve to their software takes forever from idea to testing to production.. you can improve your software in a matter of days.. focus on what differentiates you from them rather than what makes you the same..