Is it possible to release a product these days without upsetting someone?

... honestly... does it matter?

i don't think about it much at all! haters are always going to hate. let's keep pressing.

slay.

Offence is taken, not given. Let people feel their feelings - it's not your responsibility to police that.

Plus, everyone who participates in business knows it's competitive. Competition is what leads to innovation. If a competitor sees you launch, they should be thinking "this is good - someone to keep me on my toes, and it's proof there's an abundant market for what we're doing."

The world is woke, enjoy!

It's better if people love or hate your product than be completely indifferent to it. Indifference is the death-sentence of most products -- unless it's something essential.

Plus, it's better when people are critical about your product, because they are looking at it through a different lens than you are. That critical feedback can be helpful much of the time, because it will (or can) help you improve the product.

When appropriate, thank people for their critical feedback, and let them know you're listening.

Regardless, it is always tough to hear/read the hate or negative feedback. You just have to find a way to see the positive side of it, if there is any.

I'm afraid you're going to have hard time marketing and selling with this approach. You need to clearly show that you are a better choice than the established players - who would pick you otherwise?

This obviously doesn't mean purposefully offending anyone. In fact, mentioning competition in ads is illegal in many parts of the world. But you still need a way to distinguish yourself, and clearly communicate why you are a better choice than someone else.

I personally don't understand the question. Competition is normal and encouraged, you are not upsetting your competitors when you release a similar product, you are just pushing the bar forward in that domain. You are only upsetting someone if you release a controversial product that's directly attacking the beliefs of a specific category of people.

One word answer is NO.

1. As the market gets saturated with different product sectors and micro sectors, the line differentiating two products gets thinner. Somehow the probability that your product is similar to another product increases. I felt this while ideating, designing and developing product.
   Because of this dynamic nature of market you never know if your product directly or indirectly competes someone else's.
   As a matter of fact it is not in our hand to make our product completely different than others' feature wise.
   So I feel that we should stop worrying for what we can not control. Rather we should focus on what our product does.

2. Let's be optimistic . If someone is not happy with your product then probably that is a proof that your product might have the potential to eat a portion of the probable market sector. Indie developers are always very specific about their market. Most of them build only if there is a potential market out there. Otherwise they will be loosing their resources. What i mean is that building product that may indirectly compete someone is not always intentional. However this is not true in case of giants such as f b, go ogle and am azon.
   Corporate strategies can sometimes build direct copies of our product or acquire some or would build a giant open source portal that no one can compete.
   Atleast indies are better than that.

3. There will always be some haters.
   Because it is their job of hating instead of building.
   They will comment on your product even before understanding fully what your product actually does.
   Please don't worry of haters before launching. They can throw hate speech even before you launch. Someone did that when I was discussing about my future product which I haven't yet launched.
   Kill them with kindness.

So you are not alone.
Thanks. Best of luck for your launch.

I realize it's only one small part of what you're talking about, but I love "hate"! It's some of the best feedback I could ask for this early on. If someone tells me they love what I'm doing, while it's a nice little ego boost that's about all it does for me. If someone tells me my landing page sucks though and they can't understand what my service even does, now that's some actionable feedback!

I need to get better at everything that I'm doing if I expect to accomplish more than what I have so far. Now, fortunately so far it's all been in the context of a very supportive community here at Indie Hackers. None the less, the point is I'm still trying to actively seek out real brutally honest feedback, not just a pat on the back that makes me feel good.

So, when you get "hate" make sure to embrace it and look for the gems in that hate that you can use to make yourself and your product better. Don't try to please everyone all the time, but when you get criticism look for the value in it instead of brushing it off.

I'll add to the comments here: there is a cognitive bias where we overindex a negative experience (and related memorial) compared to positive ones.

To offset this bias, I do two things:

First, I remind myself that every unhappy person I hear from represents just that person, and that every happy person represents 100 people who are happy but didn't think to say so.

Second, I screen shot or write down poitive comments from people who I've helped and appreciate my work. I keep a small selection of this collection visible at all times, and any time I'm feeling low cuz someone was a dick, I browse through the rest of the collection.

Offset your biases!

Welcome to a little thing called the competitive market, a cornerstone feature of capitalism and the free market.

Nobody "loves" competition when the competition is targeting you. But it is good for everyone including the people that are targeted.

So long as you are not shamelessly cloning a competing service with little or no innovation then as others have said, who cares.

Sometimes I feel like the world is getting too soft :). Some people need to start taking accountability for their own feelings and stop expecting everyone else to accommodate their delicate personalities and egos.

I think in these times any strong emotion that your product is able to instil in your audience is good for you( unless of course it is a universal reaction of 'Bad'). There will always be haters but treat them as your potential future customers and listen to them carefully. Do not react to their hate comments instead try to have a dialogue with them

The best products all received criticism when they first launched! For example, everyone thought the iPhone would fail when it came out in 2007. Critics predicted it to be the downfall of Apple and were baffled at why anyone would ever use an all-in-one device for music, calling, and Internet :)

So take all the criticism you get with a grain of salt. Believing in your own vision is what matters.

Who cares Ben?
You gotta do your thing. Otherwise someone else will do it.

Do you think someone is going to cate about your feelings? Ain't gonna happened bro.

The human being is so different, that no matter what you do and how you do it, someone will be bother.

Like puff daddy said....

"Don't stop now, straight to the top now'

well I'd like to think I haven't yet upset anyone with my product https://feedpiper.com

You should be excited if potential competitors are upset about your release. It's validation that they think you have done a good enough job that they need to worry. There are always haters and trolls, you just have to ignore them...

As far as competition to your own product, I think it's normally best to use as a learning opportunity. What are they doing differently? What do they know that you don't? Why would your customers leave for them?

If you're solving a problem which your competitor doesn't with their product, then there exists a need gap in their product which you're fulfilling; it's their fault that they didn't address the need gap.

Judgements are reserved with the customer, not with the competitor.

If you are responding to the Hey stuff, that is only one marketing method.

If you are just worried about people not liking your stuff, you don't know them. They didn't build it. Launch it

You can generalize that to pretty much whatever you do or say so don't stress about it

Hi Ben,

Every product is a tool for a specific job, some people need something small and simple and others need more features. I have seen some great products over the years grow and grow and they kind of outgrow the basic usage which is what I liked about them, or they get acquired by larger companies and they lose their appeal by charging more or not providing the same level of support. I have switched products for these reasons and I think they are important.

I hope my product will be successful in being both useful and where users feel they have the support. I have always done my own thing and stick to my guns (maybe that is the problem) but there are a lot of people that use products and decide to build something better than they have seen or used in the hope others think the same.
Having a USP I suspect is a good differentiator but others can copy that too, but its hard to keep things simple, so I usually go for that.

I had a comment on a forum that said something like, 'This was done 10 years ago' but what hasn't been done in some form or another, Basecamp just launched "Hey" which seems like another email client, I suspect they thought, well what does everyone do on their computer first:

Power button -> Browser(optional) -> Email.... bingo let's do that.

[I wonder if a browser or social media site were other options?]

..actually its more like: Wake Up -> Find Phone -> Look at notifications...

I wouldn't say I feel offended, I just look at how my product can be better alternative.

Mark

I'd say, if you're upsetting someone then at least you're getting some kind of reaction! The worst thing would be that no-one cares; utter indifference.

I had a product out many years ago, it was a plugin that provided analytics for Stripe (way before they had that fancy dashboard) and someone messaged me with an angry email saying I was copying someone else and "how dare I"! :D The best part was, my plugin was out before the competitor (who has since made a massive business from it) so the anger was misplaced!

In the end, I wouldn't worry about the competition or upsetting people. Worry about making a great product.

There are billions of people on this planet, so no 🤷🏽‍♀️. And honestly, my strategy has always been to ignore the competition, and that's how I changed the software testing industry. 😊