What mental traps do you fall into when looking around at the competition?

The truth is you aren't competing against Amazon, you're competing against a junior product manager who works at Amazon. Once you realise that the challenge is far less daunting.

This was timely, we are at a point in our company where the competition who recently raised 7 figures and pumping most of the money into ads have given us some concerns... yet our numbers are good and we seem to be making better product decisions inspite no funding round or big media publicity yet.

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Competitors 00:51 - Fear of the Competition 01:42 - Lies Founders Tell Themselves 02:32 - Most Common Outcomes 03:28 - Perception vs Reality 06:57 - Copycats - Twitch 08:15 - Back to Basics 08:50 - Real Competitive Concerns 09:40 - A Better Product - Socialcam 10:14 - Structural Advantages - Kiko and Perfect Audience 11:20 - "Good Enough" example - Microsoft Teams and Slack 12:30 - FAANG Fails 13:40 - Instacart vs Amazon 14:16 - Cruise vs Google 15:00 - Build a Better Product

Definitely felt the fear/pain of 'looking over at competitors' super super keenly - especially the point of seeing them raise a mammoth Series A, and being like "that's it *kicks over table* ...it's all over!" I think that the piece on talking to users and having that intimate understanding of their problem is so understated - almost like this solves the paradigm of watching a competitor blow up too, but knowing that despite the alarm bells ringing, you're still solving user problems and providing value.

These guys are therapists for tech startups

Sounds similar to Tesla strategy - focus on the product, constantly improve the product. Competitors are constantly creating new products [new engines, new body style, new seats etc.] Tesla focus on product to scale production which cuts costs and leads to best profit margin in the vehicle industry.

When big companies try to copy features or products a lot of times they don’t get it quite right because of all the politics and bureaucracy in their organizations. Those things can dilute a great idea.

I wrote a piece about similar worries as a startup founder on Medium (London Lowmanstone - "Network Effects are Software’s Defensible Moat"). So great to see people who have actually talked to so many different startups and can give examples of failures and successes and the ratio that's actually seen in the world, rather than guesses based out of fear.

Needed to hear this this week. Thank you 🙏🏾

Thnx to the admin for making such a great job on YC lists. Super easy to navigate them

"They have replaced their enthusiasm and replaced it with fear" - This is a 10000% true

Hey YC Team, Please do a case study on Fast in the next week or two. Would love to hear your take and deep dive on what happened and some learnings for us all from the whole episode.

Finally a new video! Can't wait!

Amazing and simple. Build a better product and really care about the customer, because FANG will only scratch the surface and won’t go above and beyond

Love it guys! Keep up the great work!!

These videos cut deep and I keep coming back for more.

Holy cow how this could have so few views? This is gold

great video right on time when i needed it.

Awesome insights! Wish I had heard this a year or so back!!

Hey ycombinator admin, would you mind creating playlist for partner lounge series? So I don't need to check it out every time. :)

How about if it's 1990 or the early 1990's and you want to build an online encyclopedia (edited by both companies and individuals). Microsoft already has an encyclopedia on CD or DVD. Wouldn't you think they would take the encyclopedia online.

Great video for startup

That's great! Thank you.

. . . Yes, yes, . . . When Brad Flora brings it back to simply "building a better product" as the priority, rather than the other structural aspects . . .

Reminds me of the Monopoly story. I think Mervin Gardens is till date wrongly spelled because it was wrongly spelled in the originally game!

Hello I want to know how startup company can tie up with big companies for any purpose of startup like API, some information, etc

when the problem is small but growing, large companies may ignore it for a long enough time for you to build another unicorn)

13:27 that is a good point

Google drive vs dropbox? Google meet vs Zoom? Why are the two different? Why dropbox was affected by drive more than how zoom was affected by meet?

8:00 when Twitch turned around 15:00 You need a better product

Great content

are you guys using riverside for this video?

Soon i going to because I can because i got the power

Changed the title lol

Amazon actually won in cloud but there were not even close to number 1 in cloud when cloud startups started. Structural advantage sucks.

I Reject Death as a certainty. Y canit I just back up my brain live online until i can come back alive offline. .

Wanna join a desi community for this y'all? Ping me

#Awesome

You don't beat big tech You become 1 😛

The indian guy: "ipods are a waste of money." 😄

No my way to be the next Amazon

Cameras are too zoomed in, IMHO

Hello, I am the CEO of Elexion, an information brokerage platform. We are engaging with people in Silicon Valley to learn about emerging issues in communicating this information to Latin American entrepreneurs! If you are a citizen We would like to know the problems that are occurring. Write us....

I am the first commenter, that's how much dedicated I am, take me in yc or you will be cursed 😶‍🌫️

Teams >> Slack

Over Time. Microsoft teams has become the very good, the intergration with the email, calendar and other MS product is best.

When i see google search….all i see is Yahoo! Search 2000 drenched in payola

Are you being lead by fear, or love?