In our previous business, we had a competitor that had been around for twenty years. They had a much longer history and plenty of features we didn't have.
We couldn't simply match all of that immediately. What we could do was find different ways to solve the problems we understood from running our own operation.
I think that helped us. If we'd spent all our time trying to recreate their product, we'd have been following the direction they'd already chosen. Our own approach gave us a reason for customers to look at us differently.
Eventually, that competitor came to us with a merger proposal. We were hesitant, because they were the business we'd been competing with. We agreed on a fifty-fifty arrangement and formed Realbase.
Part of me still wonders what a few more years of competing would have felt like. We had put so much energy into trying to become the strongest business that the idea of carrying on was appealing.
But the merger offered a different way forward. We chose that rather than keep fighting simply because we'd spent years treating them as the opposition.
I wouldn't use our result to prescribe what another founder should do about a competitor. The circumstances matter. What I take from it is that you can learn about a market without accepting someone else's product as the blueprint.
Work from the problems you understand, and keep looking at the options as the business changes. A competitor can be a reason to improve, and later become part of a decision you hadn't expected to make.
