Stop building the same product as others
I was watching YouTube and found this video talking about the “milk tea shop” problem in China. When a milk tea shop gets successful in an area, suddenly everyone starts opening their own milk tea shop around the same area. The street then eventually gets filled with all these shops, and eventually everything dries out because of oversaturation.
It kind of reminded me of the SaaS industry. A tool gets successful with a certain ICP, and suddenly various tools that essentially do the same thing appear. I run a SaaS myself, so I started thinking about ways I can avoid this phenomenon.
I found that it's quite useful to ask yourself 3 questions:
Do you offer something different than your competitors? If so, in what way?
Why would someone choose you instead of the bigger, more established option?
If your product disappeared tomorrow, what would your customers miss that they couldn't easily get elsewhere?
For us the hypothesis why people would choose us over competitors was that customers would be afraid of connecting their LinkedIn account to tools because they don’t want to risk their account getting banned. So we built our tool in a way that our customers don’t need to connect their account to our tool at all (they don’t even need a LinkedIn account). We were lucky and the market seems to prove our hypothesis.
And in general, I think every founder should have a solid answer to the above questions when starting out.
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PS: I'm moving over to X/Twitter, follow to be part of my journey! https://x.com/Matt___Bauer
The third question is the hardest to answer honestly. Most founders can describe their features but struggle to articulate the irreplaceable gap they fill.
One angle I've been exploring: the brand name itself can signal differentiation before a user reads a single feature. A domain name that communicates the niche instantly — before any pitch, any copy, any demo — is one underrated competitive advantage that gets overlooked when founders are laser-focused on product.
The milk tea analogy is apt. The shops that survive aren't necessarily the best tea — they're usually the ones with the clearest identity. Branding at the domain/name level is positioning before product.
Those 3 questions are gold. For us at viral-machine.com the answer to "what would they miss" is preview before paying — you see the watermarked short before spending a cent. Competitors charge upfront regardless of output quality. That one differentiator drives almost every conversion conversation we have.
You’re right — too many AI startups chase the same idea. Differentiation and niche positioning are everything. What unique angle do you think founders overlook most when carving out their space?
Yesss!! This is what I have also been doing, this resonates with me a lot!!!
The "our tool" link points to an Internal Server Error.
This resonates a lot we've seen similar dynamics in proptech. The hardest part isn't building the differentiator, it's convincing early users to trust something unfamiliar over the 'safe' established players. How long did it take before people started picking IbexAI over the obvious choice?
I think the third question is the most revealing. Plenty of products can list features that are different, but very few can explain what customers would genuinely miss if they disappeared.
One thing I'd add is that differentiation doesn't always have to come from the product itself. It can come from serving a narrower customer, solving the problem faster, reducing risk, or removing a frustrating step in the workflow. Those advantages are much harder for competitors to copy than a feature checklist.
Your LinkedIn example is a good illustration because you solved a trust problem rather than adding another feature. That's often where the strongest positioning comes from.
I see this as a two way conversation . the idea of building the same product as others has always been a funny one as in the business world several businesses are mere iterations of others and that didnt hinder their success . its about positioning and how you market it . the angle really matters and then ofcuss it cant be a verbatim copy . their has to be some sort of difference
I kind of agree. If one has a structural advantage that the competition does not, it may still be a valid venture. On the other hand, if one don't understand the business problem and then clones a product with no real differentiation... he or she may be wasting their time.
Eventually, the market will force some kind of equilibrium. Bubbles grow and then burst and the ones left are the most effective at executing the idea!
Your LinkedIn insight is the right kind of differentiation: it removes a fear instead of adding a feature. In 20 years selling into the Microsoft ecosystem I watched hundreds of lookalike MSPs compete on price while the winners competed on a single risk their buyer wanted gone. Question three on your list is the only one customers answer with their wallet.
But isnt the best way to start off ? Either solve your own problem, or copy something that you see running very successfully and work around all the issues, making it 10x better
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot while building my own product. There are already plenty of habit trackers, journaling apps, and relationship recovery apps. Instead of trying to build a “better” version of those, I started asking what problem people were still solving with spreadsheets, notes apps, and reminders. That question completely changed the direction of the product. I think those three questions are worth revisiting throughout the entire build process, not just at the beginning.
Loking like a sold UVP
The useful distinction here is that IbexAI removed a feared prerequisite instead of adding another feature. I would test that moat with one number: what share of qualified buyers say they would not evaluate any tool that connects to their LinkedIn account? If that segment is large and converts better, the risk-removal claim is positioning, product scope, and acquisition filter at once.