At a startup incubation event last Fall, I was pitching a product I was working on. It was going well, investors were asking a lot of questions; I was in the zone :). Until, another participant said:

You don’t know XYZ… They do something like that…

To him, this was a deal-breaker. You can’t do something that someone is already partly doing!

But, starting a business is not like inventing the telephone; you don’t have to be first. In fact, being first is often a disadvantage… everyone gets a chance to poke holes in your positioning.

If you really had to reinvent the wheel to go in business, there would be no Toyota, no Google or no Facebook. None of them were first-movers but, they innovated and took control of the market.

Truth is, you should not create a product if there’s no competition. If there really is no competition, spend time and ask yourself why…

Question: Have you ever been confronted with the virgin market myth?