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A comment on Ask HN:How much is too much competition to enter a market?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN:How much is too much competition to enter a market? by justin0469 on Wednesday October 24, 2012 @10:37AM (#4693095)
The target customer are mid to large restaurants and bars. So, it could be a local idea but long term would be national. Seeing the same device/software at whatever restaurant you go to might be important and make it harder for me to have a piece of the pie.

My biggest concern is how important is it to differentiate myself? The competitors have had a working and refined product for months or years so chances are they'd have a better product. They charge monthly with no upfront hardware costs and have small trial contracts with Applebees, Chilis, etc.

I realize there's 100 companies that make toilet paper and most survive, I'm just not sure if that is an appropriate analogy.

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Re:Ask HN:How much is too much competition to enter a market? by peterxy37 on Wednesday October 24, 2012 @10:57AM (#4693187)
IMO, without differentiating yourself from competitors, you have very less chance of success. Probably you can provide product/service cheaper with same quality. As you are starting local, you could probably differentiate with better support..

toilet paper industry and software industry works differently . They have very different dynamics. You can not conclude anything in general from traditional industry for software industry.

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Re:Ask HN:How much is too much competition to enter a market? by justin0469 on Wednesday October 24, 2012 @11:03AM (#4693218)
I agree and that's the reason for my hesitation. Yes, I have ideas that would make it better than theirs. They just have a lot of time and money in their favor already.

That being said, I know personalized and better support is worth a lot.

Is it OK to flat out say that the plan is to be bought out by competitors because the products are similar?

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Re:Ask HN:How much is too much competition to enter a market? by AznHisoka on Wednesday October 24, 2012 @12:06PM (#4693526)
You are focusing too much on what to tell investors.

Focus instead on your messaging to potential CUSTOMERS instead.

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