1) Assume that product differentiation is a meaningful but small contribution to eventual success; your current edge always has an expiration date.
2) Understand your market enough to be able to say why "they just build X" isn't incentive-compatible.
3) Small steps; big vision.
2) Understand your market enough to be able to say why "they just build X" isn't incentive-compatible.
3) Small steps; big vision.
For startups in financial technology, I generally say some variant of "You have three years and eighteen months. Three years until they realize that what you're doing is working. Six months until they decide to do anything. A one year product cycle. And then..."
"... you will get hit full in the face by an organization which has every partnership it could ever want, regulators on speed dial, tens of millions of customer relationships, a marketing budget denominated in billions, and capability of hiring in any tech stack.
So, move fast."
So, move fast."
Different companies might have different estimates of how fast the established players are going to move, and you're welcome to them; the exact number is less important than being optimistic about your chances and appropriately respectful of the competition.
See the big mountain of money with the sleeping dragon on it? He was not always sleeping. Look around you: the charred bones were smart, fearless people who had trained a lifetime to do exactly what you're trying to do. Many of them were better than you.
(Also that's not even the right fantasy analogy: the incumbent is closer to the dwarves than the dragon. "How'd we get all this gold? Honoring traditions, patient engineering, hard work every day, and being VERY EFFING GOOD AT WHAT WE DO THANK YOU.")
