Ask HN: What's the competitive advantage these days?

Yea, it's not true. Currently I'm seeing this business style type of co-founder that I met through a mutual connection. He can do things I couldn't, but cloning a SaaS under a week? It's not one of them.

He created an interactive prototype with lovable.dev and while it fleshes out his idea to me, he clearly isn't strong in UX-design either. Nor does he need to be.

``` 2025-07-20 10:32 That’s an exhilarating challenge! But here’s the sober reality:

*1. Scale & Surface Area*

* *Jira* and *GitLab* each represent well over a decade of engineering effort from dozens‑to‑hundreds of developers, QA, designers, product managers, and SREs. * They’re not just web apps—they’re ecosystems: issue tracking, CI/CD pipelines, permissions, integrations, APIs, marketplace extensions, mobile clients, high‑availability clustering, compliance tooling, analytics, and elaborate permission models.

*2. Engineering Effort in One Week* Even an aggressive “strip‑to‑core‑features” build would demand:

| Area | Must‑Have Functionality | Typical Complexity | Realistic Time (solo) | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------ | --------------------- | | Auth & user management | SSO, 2FA, roles | weeks | 3‑4 weeks | | Issue / Merge request model | CRUD, workflow, attachments | months | 4‑6 weeks | | Git backend or sprint boards | Repo storage or board drag‑drop | months‑years | 8‑12 weeks | | CI runner orchestration | Job scheduler, logs, artifacts | years | 6‑12 months | | Notifications & webhooks | Email, Slack, webhooks | weeks | 3‑4 weeks | | Security & compliance | RBAC, audits, CVE patching | ongoing | Ongoing |

That’s after *scope‑cutting to the bone*—and still well beyond seven days for even a seasoned full‑stack team.

*3. Minimum Viable “Clone”* If the goal is a demo that looks Jira‑ or GitLab‑like and handles the absolute basics (login, create issue, simple Kanban board or Git repo viewer), you’d still need:

* *Pre‑built OSS components* (e.g., Focalboard, Gitea, Drone CI) * *Glue code* to stitch UI, auth, and database models * *DevOps* for cloud deploy, backups, SSL, monitoring * *Acceptance tests* so the demo doesn’t fall over during the pitch

With a well‑coordinated *5‑7 person tiger team*, an MVP façade might be shown inside a week—but it would be fragile, feature‑poor, and nowhere near production‑ready.

*4. What \$1 million can buy fast*

* *Fork & skin* an existing open‑source platform (e.g., Forgejo for GitLab‑like, OpenProject or Plane for Jira‑like). * Hire a *dedicated squad* (engineers, designer, DevOps) on a 3‑to‑6‑month crash program to reach parity for the specific subset of features you actually need. * Budget for *security audit, uptime SLA, and ongoing maintenance*—because the first release is only the beginning.

*5. Suggested Next Steps*

1. *Clarify scope:* Which exact capabilities do you really need on Day 1? 2. *Select a foundation:* OSS codebase vs. greenfield build. 3. *Form a team + timeline:* Realistically 12–24 weeks for a hardened v1 with a mid‑sized team. 4. *Milestones & deliverables:* Demo, beta, public launch, enterprise tier. 5. *Contingency planning:* Budget for security, scaling, and feature creep.

If you’d like, I can help map out a detailed project plan, assemble a tech‑stack recommendation, or break down resourcing and costs. Let me know how you’d like to proceed! ```

:-)

Tell a prospect/client you'll do something, do it, and you'll already be ahead of 90% of businesses out there.