Starting with the assumption that whatever startup idea I can have it's already been done in some form somewhere. How would you go about digging out those attempts ? (I mean beside googling which more often than not will yield nothing relevant)
This is one of those "Certainly <i>feels</i> like work, but does not actually advance the business forward, so why bother doing it?" sort of tasks.
If there is a company already solving the same problem and you can't find it within 1h of internet research then they're doing bad marketing and you have a good chance. The potential customers won't find them either.
Google wasn't the 1st search engine, Facebook wasn't the 1st social network, Youtube wasn't the 1st video site.<p>Execution trumps first mover advantage.
Perform market research<p>Entrepreneurship starts with creating a business plan. Part of that business plan is identifying your target market, your competition, and defining how you are unique. It's not so much that something has been done before but rather what sets you apart. If your concern is legal, then patents (google scholar) and trademarks are what you should be looking at. Copywrite is a bit more difficult but after performing your market research you should have an idea of what's out there. In other words, who is your target market and what are they using now that your startup is aiming to satisfy?
Assuming your startup idea is SaaS/web app...<p>Search on:<p>* /r/startups and /r/entrepreneur on reddit<p>* betalist.com<p>* startuplist.com<p>* techcrunch<p>* thenextweb<p>* venturebeat<p>I'm working on solving this problem. If you're interested, sign up to stay updated: rivalseek.com