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Pizza Products vs Google Search

Reading through the a bunch of Indie Hackers posts today where the there is growing MRR in a crowded market. Some of these products are email marketing and web hosting tools. An initial reaction "How can that be?"

I have an over simplistic theory that there are two types of products: "Pizza" and "Googles". For our purposes, Google means Google Search.

🔎 Let's put Duck Duck Go in the parking lot for a moment. Google Search dominates web search. It would be next to impossible to build a product that beats them. At any moment, the world only needs one web search company to exist. Now, Google disrupted Yahoo and Alta Vista and someone will disrupt Google someday. But if you say you are building the next web search company...eyebrows will go up. It's a singular space. Venture capitalists love uncaptured singular spaces, something it's very hard to find.

Now, let's talk pizza. People love pizza. They pay to have it delivered. The world eats a whopping load of pizza. I live in NJ in a small town and we have four pizzerias. I bet I could start selling pizza from my porch right now and make a profit.

🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕

The email marketing , web hosting, and other apps posting about success are "pizza" products. They service a HUGE market. Mail Chimp exists, but because there are millions of email marketers, a new tool can carve out a business. A pizzeria is a great idea for a bootstrapped hustle business.

The point of all this is, when you create your business, a ton of people will say "XYZ already exists." If it's a huge market and you don't want VC investment, tell them, "It's okay. People love pizza."

I'm welcome to feedback on the theory!

on October 27, 2021
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    Hi Sean, exactly! The ocean is big enough to catch fish for everyone!

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