Ask HN: Dealing with pre-launch competitors

Anyway, I'm guessing the competitor doesn't feel as invincible as you think they are. More staff = faster burn rate. Market buzz = greater expectations to fulfill. Better funded = more VCs breathing down their neck. Geographic advantage = more local companies to poach their staff.

I would work out what you can do better (or just different) and focus on that. Maybe concentrate on a smaller market niche than them.

But if you really, really, feel deep-down that you have lost already. Then you have. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A major competitor of ours launched 3 weeks after we started our company, doing the exact same thing as us. They were a bunch of big-name executives from a huge successful internet company, raised 10x the funding we had, and were already live with the most prominent customers that we were going after. We were scared, until we talked with one of their customers -- turns out their technology wasn't accurate at all, and the customer hadn't even integrated it into production. We kept heads down for the next 6 months and built something that works, and now have no problem finding customers.

So ignore all the hype, and just focus on making your technology work and your users happy.

If you believe in the service you are providing and the market is big enough, then double down. But keep your eye on beating the house and not the guy with the bigger stack of chips next to you.

And remember most first-time buyers of this service are not going to know who has more funding. So when the bigger guy starts to spend money on marketing, you just ride along on their wake.