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A comment on Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by rburhum on Monday April 29, 2019 @07:06AM (#19777307)
Great advice, so I am not going to repeat this because I 100% agree with it.

However additionally I would add that if you think that it is the software alone that will make or break the company, then it is obvious that this is your first time doing this and that you have never brought a product to market. There are a ton of examples where one product that was of less quality absolutely annihilated another excellent product where the difference was the rest of the "business" machinery (marketing, sales, support, operations, etc).

It is an unpopular opinion in HNs, but good software is not enough to win.

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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by thameera on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:19AM (#19779133)
> good software is not enough to win

This might give the idea that good software is necessary [1] to win, but history has proven this is not always the case.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency

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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by nicoburns on Monday April 29, 2019 @08:02AM (#19777527)
> good software is not enough to win.

But presumably if you combine it with the other stuff then it helps?

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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by Jorge1o1 on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:05AM (#19777964)
Depends. If your software is really good, you are probably paying your developers a lot. Someone else can copy your idea for a fraction of the price, while using outsourced developers from East Europe or India
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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by rburhum on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @07:18AM (#19786904)
Don't you think that saying that all software that comes from these places is plain old racist? Some of the best engineers I have worked with are from Ukraine, for example.
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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by JohnFen on Monday April 29, 2019 @12:35PM (#19779907)
> good software is not enough to win.

This can be generalized: a good product is not sufficient. To succeed in the market requires a lot of things, a good product being only one of them.

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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by infinite8s on Monday April 29, 2019 @01:30PM (#19780519)
In some cases a good product is not even necessary.
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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by JohnFen on Monday April 29, 2019 @02:42PM (#19781290)
True, but that often depends on your definition of "good". A barely adequate but very inexpensive product can be "good" for its intended market.
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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by bluedino on Monday April 29, 2019 @08:40AM (#19777767)
Marketing always wins.

So many business owners fail to understand this. We have a better product, better support, we're made in America....

None of that matters. How do you present the product? What image does it portray? How is your name viewed?

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Re:Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it alr... by JohnFen on Monday April 29, 2019 @12:36PM (#19779927)
> Marketing always wins.

The lack of marketing will always cause failure, but history is littered with examples of how marketing alone does not always win.

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