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Website – https://marcusolsson.me Twitter – https://twitter.com/olssonm
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/olssonm; my proof: https://keybase.io/olssonm/sigs/NTSqVQs3oT76FtaTT_tgsuE08LCYAGch4pgUHHIMJTs ]
But someone pushed "publish" a bit too early with the announcement (since been removed, that's why the Google Cache) http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.wral.com%2Fdiscovery-an-asteroid-with-rings%2F13510966%2F
About a week ago someone displayed their app here at HN that they just launched – an app that is more or less exactly like the one I am developing right now.
I really didn't think that I would care that much if I found an app similar to mine, but I really do. First of I am of course worried about competition, the potential market isn't really that big. But what bothers me more is that I am afraid of looking like an imitator, someone who stole someone else's great (yet simple) idea.
The (future) competitor has a really solid application, seems to have quickly grown quite the customer base.
Now, I know for a fact that my app have just a few more feature – and to be quite frank; looks better in most ways. But when I finally launch for the public I am afraid that people will just point fingers and say "Hey, he stole that idea straight from those poor guys and just added some features!".
What would you do in this situation? Work even more, and harder to have the application behave a bit different to try differentiate them more? Just launch and see which one of our applications will stick? Call it a day and take up another project?
Yes, I know that similar and almost identical apps already exists everywhere. But to have two of them launch at almost the same time for an extremely limited niche market? Thoughts?