Is it bad to build a competing service with little differentiation?

Love this question. In most cases, there is always more room in the market for an additional competitor unless it's a saturated market. In this case, there is a fair room for more players but competing funded companies as a bootstrapper isn't easy especially if this is your first time building a product and going into market. If it's first time, I would recommend you find a relatively simpler one and give it a try. I have been compiling some here Micro SaaS Ideas.

Just do it. Give it a try. You will succeed, or you will learn.

What you’re describing here actually sounds pretty niche, and I might disagree with some of the users, suggesting that it’s too complex.

It sounds like an opportunity, because it’s something you’re interested in, and existing solutions appear to be over-priced.

You said that your solution is working well, and this indicates that it’s possible that your competitor has been farming greenfield profit because there aren’t many alternatives.

I’m always skeptical when people give advice while trying to upsell their own products. I think in a case like this it also helps to consider the personal alternatives.

Are there any other ideas that you have right now ready to go that excite you more than this or feel more viable?

I’m still pretty new to all of this myself, and I’m still grinding for my first sustainable product. However, I’ve spent way too much time just trying to figure out what I wanted to do instead of just doing it.

When I realized that nothing else really excites me as much as this one thing that I’m passionate about, I realized that, despite the fact that the market is a bit saturated, I just need to pursue it.

Btw have you seen Dokku? This is an open source Heroku alternative that I use for all my deployments. They also have a “marketplace”, but all open source.

Anyways, I’d say there’s always room for differentiation, you won’t know until you try, you’ll always learn if it doesn’t work, do something that motivates you, and being small can give you the advantage of being nimble.

Best of luck!

I have the feeling that nowadays it really doesn't matter what you are building (as long as it solves some problem). You can even copy the product from competition.
I believe it's more important to have some kind of audience or communication channel where people can find out what you have to offer.

Consider market demand and competition. If you can differentiate by improving UI, pricing, or targeting Rails Heroku users, there's potential. Plan a solid acquisition strategy to overcome challenges. Assess market, competition, and ability to differentiate and acquire customers. Good luck!

Most ideas and products have been built. Or there's a ton of overlap. The key is distribution and positioning.

Just think about Loom and Vidyard. Same product, different positioning and go to market.

Same with my company Supademo. The product is similar to other platforms but we're taking a lateral/horizontal approach to building department-wide use cases.

Now that you have the core built and ok, just start working on it and give it a deadline: 3 months for example.
The 1st month for the UI, the 2nd for testing and debugging and the last one for getting in touch with potential users.
And, of course, start marketing from now on.
You may consider to sell it to someone if it didn't work as you wanted.
Good luck :)

If you built this in two weeks, I bet you can do the SaaS part in a similar time. So you have next to nothing to loose while you can get all of their market share by just being cheaper and getting good ratings on the marketplace.
I say: Go Go Go!

I would suggest reaching out to the people who might use the product and asking them what their current issues are and whether they would pay for an alternative service. Maybe create a survey, share in subreddits, discord (other channels for developers) and go from there.

Well, I agree with your perspective. The pie is too large to be dominated by just one company. If what you want to do is very similar to your competitor, you might want to think about setting yourself apart through branding or by targeting a different niche.

But at the end of the day, if you're really passionate about it, don't let the competition discourage you. I mean, just look at Coca Cola and Pepsi

Best of luck my friend! :D

I interviewed with a company recently that was doing the same thing as 4 (better funded) other companies. I grilled them on what was differentiated, their only answer was that they were in Singapore, the others were in US, so they had better access to a different audience and were successful. TL;DR it’s all about whether you can find people and fill a need for them, be aware but not held back by competition.

I believe there is always space for more competition, as long as you solve specific problem, rather than catering to the same user base as your competitor.

Differentiating factors could be: price, use base, customer service, UX, etc.

Good question. I think there should be space for competition. As an Indiehacker you might need so little revenue in comparison to the well funded companies that you can experience successes where other see failure. Also, I'm sure the big company will eventually neglect some of their customers that you can then pick up.

The Product is just a piece of your business. If you can differentiate the marketing (User acquisition strategy) the little-differentiated product also works. Try finding out the main sources of UA of your competitors. And if you can stand out in that acquisition channel, that business would work.

VEED is a good example. Even though there have been many other video editors like Kapwing, Clipchamp, Invideo, they won the market with differentiated and strategic SEO marketing.

maybe I can be cheaper?

But, why would you want to?

If you feel there's an inefficiency in the marketplace and current options are overpriced then sacrificing profitability in order to gain marketshare might be an interesting strategy.

But, there are often hidden costs (customer acquisition, operational expenses, etc.) and the market has been priced accordingly, so competing on price means sacrificing something, too often that something ends up being quality.

Ask yourself this: what small thing could you do differently that would be so valuable that you'd be willing to pay even more? How much effort would it be to implement that? Are you willing and able to do it?

Why not do that, instead, and charge more than the currently available options?

X =
Help you can get for your weaknesses like Ads, capital from VC's
+
What you can yourself do

If X is a small sum, VC's won't be interested, hence you can think of it as a small business
If X is large, you prove validation and get traction - funding options open

If it's a small business, you want to do for long term eg. 20+ years - think if it will survive that long
If it's a big business, do you want to be in a big company - given you have to have traction, vision and uncompromising focus

You have to decide what you want to do, I don't think this can survive as a small business for 20 years - most small businesses do a lot of other businesses as their life advances

You may sell the SAAS after you have built the shell on some marketplace.
If you want to continue doing a job.

Because it's fun? I mean I get your questioning, but I'm at a point where doing businesses and projects make my life more enjoyable. So I don't really get held by by an idea that someone else already made. If I can put my own twist on it I will, but I will only see the twist after I start building sometimes.

I think this is a valid question that many entrepreneurs face.

Building a competing service with little differentiation can be risky, especially if the market is already saturated or dominated by a few players.

You might end up competing on price or features, which can erode your margins and value proposition.

However, there are ways to differentiate your service from competitors, such as focusing on a specific niche, offering superior customer service, creating a strong brand identity, or adding value through complementary services.

Ultimately, you need to understand what your target customers want and need, and how you can solve their problems better than anyone else.

I hope this helps and I wish you all the best with your venture.

I see many startups are in this space. and most of these are funded. competing with those startups especially for a beginner with no prior success, it will be hard but not impossible.

I've used autoscaling plugins on Heroku, and last time I used them they were not really expensive, not sure what the landscape is like now though. But the Heroku plugin marketplace gives you a good distribution channel, and you mention having ways to reach out to more potential customers. But you do need some differentiator to set yourself apart from the competition. Whether that's your positioning (specifically for Rails on Heroku), your features, your UX, or your pricing. Because you might also want to drive some users from the existing solution over to yours, so why would they? And for a business, they have a working solution they trust, price is unlikely to be a reason enough to switch.

The existing option seems ideal, but pricing is a concern. With the core autoscaling logic already developed, the author believes there might be space for their own service, targeting Rails Heroku users. They are contemplating differentiation through UI, tone, or pricing. However, the author seeks general thoughts on this situation, acknowledging the challenges of competing with an established player and the need for effective customer acquisition strategies.

In my perspective, it is quite common to replicate an existing solution or software and achieve success.

There is a revising software called Meitu in China that I have been using for many years. However, I have recently switched to using Canva due to its superior and more aesthetically pleasing user interface.

How much time would if cost you to publish a minimal version of your autoscaling plugin to heroku? If it's not too much work I would give it a try.

You mentioned building a landinpage. Why do you need that, when you publish to a marketplace? Why not write a medium article on your experiences with autoscaling rails on heroku instead?

And good luck in case you're going for it🤞 have you started any SaaS projects before?