There are plenty of ways that companies in the same space can cooperate and compete at the same time without doing anything shady. Most of our partners at autotempest are also technically competitors. But in almost any business there's nothing at all unusual about having a friendly chat with a competitor in the same space. You probably understand each other pretty well! You won't completely open up to them of course, but there might be some info each side is willing to share for mutual benefit.