The right way to position against competition

Another reason why you have no competition: there is no market.<p>Sometimes we delude ourselves that we found a niche no one has addressed when in fact there is no niche at all. This can be due to poor research, but as stupid as it sounds, it happens. It happened to me, at least.<p>I spent a lot of time building a product on zone diet just believing that because there were a lot of people following it and people buying products, there existed also a market of people willing to plan their diet with a computer program. It was my first software and I was very naive. But when I released it I realized that it was not possible to reach this market: there were no blogs about it and other marketing strategies were still unable to reach a significant number of customers. People simply did not bother about a "problem" that was just in my (and my friend's) mind. The customer where unreachable because the market was non existent.<p>So, if you find yourself thinking that you have no competition, go back asking the other question: is there a market for this?

<i>A chart with one row for each "feature" and one column for each of six "competitors." There's checks and X's everywhere, except of course a glowing, highlighted column representing your company which just happens to be full of checks. C'mon, everyone knows this is bullshit; it's insulting.</i><p>Ouch. That one hurts ==&#62; <a href="http://foreverlist.com/why#comparison_chart" rel="nofollow">http://foreverlist.com/why#comparison_chart</a><p>I always thought it was a decent way to showcase your strengths, not a way to insult anyone. Obviously this comparison chart could include a row called "traffic volume" in which they would all blow away Foreverlist, but why would I showcase that?<p>Is this kind of comparison chart really that bad? What would you suggest?

When I was briefly a tech journalist, "Tell me about your competition" was a required question for any interview (even for dominant players in a market). I was surprised by how many people seemed to stumble on it, but I guess they were worried about how it would affect the narrative of what I was writing. I always had a lot of respect for really honest, thoughtful answers.

This is good advice for how to think about the competitive landscape even if you aren't pitching investors.

&#62; It's true that this industry hasn't yet seen a software<p>&#62; solution, but that's not because they hate computers,<p>&#62; but rather that it hasn't been possible to address<p>&#62; that market with software. Now it is because (pick one):<p>A question to the author of the post: why the "pick one" qualifier?<p>Is it because any one of the reasons given should be sufficient?<p>Is it because more than one could be dangerous or at least counterproductive?

"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." --Henry Ford