Millions of Users for Everyone!

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Photo Credit: El Marto

Worried about competitors? Don’t be.

There are literally millions of internet users for everyone!

There are Billions of people that go on the internet! That is a big pool of people to have access to.

Source: Internet World Stats

Yes, another social network can exist!
Yes, another hosted email newsletter service can exist!
Yes, another Google can exist!
Yes, another [insert any web company that is already huge] can exist!

Why? The Internet is MASSIVE. Tons of potential customers still exist for you!

To prove my point. I’m going to share a few companies that are all sort of doing the same thing and have millions of users.

The best example is Hosted Email Newsletter companies (all doing easily $1M+ in revenue)
MailChimp
iContact
ConstantContact
CampaignMonitor

Web Based BackUp Solutions (all doing really well for themselves)
Backupify
DropBox
Carbonite

Super Simple Blogging Service (all have loads of users)
Tumblr
Typepad
Blogger
WordPress

Super Simple Web Publishing Service
Weebly
Homestead/Intuit
 Jimdo

Project Management Tools 
37Signals
TeamWorkPM
Pivitol Tracker

Social Networks
Google Plus (~50 Million Users)
Facebook (~700 Million Users)
Twitter (~100 Million Users)

Of course each company is slightly different when you look at on a granular level. But most of the companies can be easily grouped together when you take a look at their core mission.

Here is my point: DON’T BE WORRIED ABOUT COMPETITORS. There are millions of customers that want to use your product even if it similar to some thing else. Just stay focused on finding customers, serving them well, and your internet business will thrive!

PS: Yes, I do think another Facebook can exist 🙂 Let me know what you think in the comments!

8 Comments

  1. This is so true. I’m running 2 online businesses and both spaces are quite competitive. When I meet someone and tell them about my businesses, many times I get this reaction – “Oh, have you heard about this company doing same thing?”. These people think if you’ve a competition, then you are doomed to fail. So now a days I learned to ignore such people and move on.

    My strategy in competitive space is – first focus on differentiating your solution than your competition’s solution so that you acquire enough customers, and then focus on out executing your competition in how you serve your customers.

    Great write up Rishi! Something I needed to keep pushing forward.

      • Wouldn’t be difficult to acquire customers in a crowded space without showing any differentiating factor? One thing I observed that in competitive space, your customers will typically be aware of choices available in the market, and they would see if you’re offering more for cheaper or if you’re offering something better. Naturally, more for cheaper doesn’t work you’re bootstrapping on shoe string and are very small compared to your competition. But what you can do is to do one thing really better with position yourself little differently in the market compared to other competitors.

        Would love to hear your thoughts on how you would acquire customers in a competitive space without having differentiating solution.

        • Aditya – That is a really great question. I’m glad you asked it

          #1 I don’t think all your customers know about the competition. Flying Cart has 100+ competitors and a majority of our customers don’t even know that shopping cart solutions even exists.

          #2 The biggest competitor isn’t your competitors. Understanding how you can reach your customers is your biggest competitor. It is your message not reaching the right people at the right time is the problem.

          #3 It isn’t about features, it isn’t about cost. It is more about solving the customers problem in the least amount of time. For my new product Digioh we have found that making our product 10x easier to use makes us better than the competition.

          Let me know what you think.

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