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Is it a good idea to go against big players in a market?

Seems I am in a creative darkness, can't find a business idea to save my life... darn, so why not go into something I know well...

So I know a couple of domains very well, but they are big boys club... one of them is the mobile dispatching of work ... I could create a real good one with the experience I have in this, but darn, how do you compete with established (big) players in an industry? I could go after the small fish, but it seems many companies are doing this too...

Anyone went in a crowded space and carved a niche for themselves?

  1. 5

    I read a comment in someones post here on IH's that stayed with me:

    "Pick an idea in a large market that will always be in demand and work on a product that caters to a subset of use cases exceedingly well".

    I started Pallyy in an extremely crowded space (social media scheduling), up against Later, Buffer, Hootsuite who all have endless marketing budgets and millions of customers however I've still managed to find some success and even had some customers convert from those over to mine.

    Just find something you have some expreience in and jump in, I say!

    1. 1

      👌 Great ! May I ask what do you do for marketing ? What is the main source of traffic you get ?

      1. 1

        For traffic alone, the #1 source is SEO but so far it's not the most converting channel.

  2. 2

    I'm currently building something in a crowded space. I'm not sure if it'll work, but my two cents is that it's important to be differentiated in a way that's meaningful to a certain set of customers.

    The good thing is that differentiation can take many forms: target market/customer, different or better features, design/branding, customer service, marketing/distribution channels, price, bundling, simpler or more complex/powerful product, etc.

  3. 2

    You have to find a group of the big player's users who have an important unsolved need that is so important (to them) they'd switch to your company if you solved it.

    So... maybe the house-flippers of the world need mobile dispatching of their painters, carpenters, electricians, landscapers.... and the existing solutions don't work for them.

    Or something like that.

    The key is that the user group you're targeting has a problem that feels so big and important they they will pay attention to your solution.

    Either they need to have a significant, daily pain point, or a significant legal/compliance risk, or some other BIG PROBLEM that makes the pain of switching to your solution less than the pain of keeping what they have.

    The #1 mistake, is you're solving a problem that just isn't important enough to make your target customers go through the pain of switching to your service.

    1. 1

      Finding those problems is what I have been struggling with for years. Nothing seems to be a big enough problem for me to jump in... I feel time slipping away from me...

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        My best suggestion, not that it's easy, is to engage with different customer niches and ask them what unsolved problems they have. I don't think any of us can spot the problem as an outsider.

  4. 2

    Going into an established market can work well, if nothing else, it proves people have a problem and pay for the solution. You likely want to make sure it's not winner takes all though.

    For instance, my market is stock graphics. There are a lot of competitors, including big guys like iStockPhoto, CreativeMarket, Adobe Stock, etc. There is money in the industry, and it's really tough for one player to own the entire market. I've been carving out my space in the market slowly. I don't need millions to be successful. In fact, I'm not too far away from being able to do this full time.

    1. 2

      I hear you, but it can be intimidating looking at the established ones with a long list of features and large development teams... I like the winner takes all analogy, got me thinking... there are so many in my field and I am starting to analyse them and they all seem to be catering to a different crowd... Some are heavy on time management and timesheets others more on job task tracking... others on accurate billing and on site payment...

      I think I need to figure out a niche to go in to differentiate myself...

      1. 2

        At the same time, the bigger guys have to be everything to everyone... Niching down definitely works to your advantage. You can speak specifically to a very specific user. You're on the right track.

  5. 1

    One way that you could go about it is to do consultancy for a while and see what common problem your clients are trying to solve. You then create a product for those clients. The benefit is that you have prospects that already know you and will be interested in the solution that you have for their problem.

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