Startups vs Indiehacking, what I had to unlearn
The way startups look at competition is quite different. Usually, startups want to solve big problems that will deliver the best ROI for investors who put millions of dollars into the company. As a result, whatever you do should be "10x" better than the current competitor or "0 to 1". For the path of least resistance, indiehackers shouldn't try to be 10 times better to invent something completely new (although this does happen). UVP plays a much bigger role and it's more about capturing gaps in the market (which sometimes are created not only in the feature set of a competitor but positioning too). For example, Tally is one of the most successful products and their competition was Typeform, google forms, survey monkey, etc. I think Tally is not 10 times better than any of them but it's very clear how they are different (to me they are more lightweight, easy, and aesthetic).
I've moved away from a few projects that a couple of months later had very similar alternatives that were making 10k MRR, and I moved on just because I found others doing a similar thing and I was like "can I do this 10 times better? Probably not..NEXT"
What do you guys think?
I was reading somewhere else as well that, "You don't have to create a earth shattering product, chances are you won't." I think finding those small gaps in the market and takin advantage of that is the way to go.
Ideally there are great economics / opportunity for working those gaps and it's a model / process that should be repeatable (which is a lot harder to do with the 10xers).
Google tends to abandon projects if someone else started it as well. I think "we" should focus on the "tail" of the market - fill the small gap between big players. I also think this is where the most money is.