Feb 10th, 2021

It Is Ok To Build Your Startup Where There Is Competition


It sounds counterintuitive and unnecessarily aggressive, but it is ok. It sort of is frowned upon but not illegal.

Look at these guys:

That guy on the left came back one afternoon after a fight with his missus, and this guy had popped up. Then he had another fight with his missus that night. Plus, it probably will turn out that that new guy was his spiteful brother, making you feel worse for this unknown (Chinese?) guy. Poor guy.

So what happens now are they both gonna have to get good at their business and can’t just be fighting their misuses no more.

And they all get a piece of the pie, which they can hide somewhere and eat.

I built a Proxies API like that. Right next to my competition. Right after a fight.

And I don’t need much from it. Some crumbs here and there, and I will do just fine.

Plus, I get to learn from the bunch of the guys before me. That’s where their 80/20 rule comes in. It should be renamed the ‘here’s how the pioneers wasted most of their effort finding the way (the 80%) and here is what finally worked (the 20%), so just copy this’ rule.

Using the 80/20 rule and some real personal smarts, I was able to work out.

1. The kind of places they got traffic from, it is hilarious to see the stunts they tried before they realized the now obvious. One guy even started a Facebook group! What DUDE! Developers HATE talking work on Facebook. I could have told you that then.

2. I know what kind of content works, so I just write those but way better. Use their complete exhaustion to my advantage 😈

3. The type of ads they have put up. You can see the evolution of their ads using SpyFu.

4. The kind of website copy they used. You can use the Way back Machines to see their journey from humble beginnings to sophisticated war mongering beasts that they have become, and you know, learn from that.

5. Learn the amount of work they put in. I just need to put in a couple of hours more than them, to be honest, and I will be well & truly ahead. But seriously, how the hell do you know what it takes to do anything? It turns out it is not much in my case, but how DO you know that?

6. The kind of money they make. Let us face it, and everyone loves to be on podcasts where they like to vomit out every personal struggle and detail about themselves, their pets, and their businesses. Good for them.

7. I am glad I came in late. In fact, I would have been well advised to probably wait another year.

8. They don’t write half as funny as me. Which means. I have a better Rotating Proxies Service, AND I can make you laugh. That’s something you always look for in a Rotating Proxies API Service.

9. And lastly, never, ever get on a podcast. No, thank you.

The author is the founder of Proxies API, a proxy rotation API service.

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