Learning from competition

If you (think you) don't have any competition for your product, you just haven't looked hard enough.

But seeing all the wonders that competitors do can be daunting, especially when you're just starting. It's easy to feel "How can I compete with that?"

When I started API Bakery I knew I'd have some competition, but learning about each new competitor was a blow. I now have a dozen or so direct competitors, and keep track of them in a list:

In this post, instead, I want to highlight positive things that (learning about) competition brings for you and your product:

• Market validation. If there are competitors, this means many people have identified the same pain point(s) you have. They agree there's a market there!
• Research and ideas. Looking at what competitors' products work gives you an idea of what they think is the most important problem and hints on how to code it. You won't have the same ideas on either prioritization or how to solve things, which is good - you don't want to blindly copy anyone! But there's no reason not to take advantage of the research they did, as long as you take it with a grain of salt.
• Marketing. Stalk them, see how and where they engage with their potential users. See how their posts, updates, ads or outreach work (or fail to work).
• Feedback On platforms such as Product Hunt or social networks, comments are public, which gives you excellent insight into what the audience thinks, what they want or what they're confused about. It's free market research!

I'd like to repeat to avoid any confusion: absolutely don't just go and copy your competitors' their features or tactics. That's a losing game (besides being bad style). Instead, do use every bit of information you uncover to expand your understanding of the problem space, your market and what works and what doesn't.

Competitors. Gotta love'em.