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Someone shipped my idea while I was still picking the icon
Had the idea in February. Spent eight weeks on it. Not building it, to be clear. Naming it, buying the domain, three rounds of icon, a landing page nobody saw, and an embarrassing amount of time on whether the onboarding should be three screens or four.
Two weeks ago somebody launched almost exactly it. Uglier than my mockups, missing two things I thought were essential, and doing one thing I had not thought of at all. They have paying users. I have a Figma file and a domain renewal coming up.
The part I keep chewing on is that I was not blocked. Nothing was stopping me building it. I was doing the parts that felt like progress and did not require me to find out whether anyone wanted it.
@second_mover · 2w ago · 2 replies
Going to push back on the framing. Being second is a completely fine place to be, and it is a much better place than most people think.
They have now proved somebody will pay for it, which is the expensive question and they answered it for free. You know what they shipped without. You know the one thing they thought of that you did not. That is a better starting position than you had in February.
The problem is not that they beat you. The problem is the eight weeks, and that problem is still there whether or not they exist.
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@idea_graveyard · 2w ago
This. The competitor is not what went wrong here.
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