Competition is a Good Thing
Competition is a good thing. Especially the so called, “never been seen before”. Finding someone else on the internet selling “your product” may not be as bad as it seems. Yes at first, your stomach drops and you can’t help but think you have wasted much of your time and money. But let’s face the facts. Most products are not new anyway. Most products are variations of an old idea and most patents are not truly disruptive or truly unique. They are just tweaks or fine adjustments for the market place.
One of our customers called me last week in a panic. She tells me that she just saw her product on Television. She was devastated. She wanted to know if we had begun making the prototype and if she could put a halt on it. I said no, we have not begun yet. Whatever you want to do is fine. She wanted to sit back and give it some thought. Later the next day she called and said, I think its best I discuss with my patent attorney. I said ok and offered to be of assistance if they needed my input on the other product and its features compared to hers. The project is on hold at the moment.
Competition may just prove that your product idea is not a stretch or as far out as you may have thought it was. It just proves that another and more than likely, (others) in our world of eight billion people, think this a problem and they believe it demands a solution.
I would do two things. Buy the other product and try it out. Being first to market is over rated. Google was not first to market. Yahoo was. Now look at them. There are countless examples of companies being first to market failing hard and fast because of one thing; They build demand for the industry or product with a weak solution and they spend the bulk of their money building the market.
Kate, if you’re reading this, we have an up on them now. We know their weakness. Their product looks cheap and appears as though it does not function nearly as well as yours would. Well, the decision is obviously hers to make, but if it were me, I would not throw in the towel just yet. What would you do?