Competition is good but how much is too much competition to enter a market?<p>I had an idea for a business with a relatively small number of barriers to entry and knew of a couple competitors. In doing more research, there are 5 national competitor with big contracts already. Sure there's nothing like it locally but why would someone take my product over that nationally available product once they realize it's available?<p>I've talked to many random people and they love the idea and have no idea about any competitors. is it ok to work on a product and investor pitch making it clear the plan is to be bought out by a competitor?<p><i></i>EDIT: we're having some good comments here, can we get this out to more people? I greatly appreciate the feedback so far.
What is your target market size in general ? I mean are you are going after a specific niche where you expect to get about 1000 paying customers total OR you are looking at a consumer app where you want millions of users ?<p>I would not worry about <i>too much</i> competition. I would rather look at how much piece of the pie is potentially available (depending on the answer to the question about market size above). For example, you say that there are 5 national competitors for that particular idea you had but locally, there <i>might</i> be opportunity. So why not start local and talk to your potential customers ? Again, depending on what your target audience is and their market size, it could be very likely that there still is a big piece of the pie left for you.
"I've talked to many random people and they love the idea and have no idea about any competitors."<p>I would recommend not talking to random people. Talk to people who are in your target market instead. And don't just ask if it's a good idea. Ask them if they would want to pay $X per month for it.