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independence2 unconnected · 1 more author in those circles
standing

contested · 3 claims against 1

applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

mixed results

confidence

high

evidence

4 claims · 3 articles · 4 receipts

window

2017-04-03 → 2024-01-24

2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Outlast the funded competitor instead of outspending them

A venture backed rival burns capital across several markets at once and often leaves, is acquired or pivots, so persistence in one place is itself a strategy. Whether a solo operator should enter a crowded funded category at all is argued the other way by someone who lost hundreds of hours proving it.

Where this splits

One builder held a market for two years against a twenty person funded team and another concluded that a solo operator should never enter a category hundreds of funded companies are contesting.

3 claims against 1

Nathan Barry · Pieter Levels

Outlast the funded rival, they leave or pivot

  1. 01A single operator can hold a market against a funded competitor by outlasting them rather than by outspending them.
  2. 02Expect better-funded competitors to spread themselves thin chasing other markets, and win by simply still being there.
the objection · 1 claimCory Zue

Stay out of a crowded, well funded category

A solo operator should not enter a category being contested by hundreds of funded companies, and should stay out of segments whose sales motion does not suit them.

  1. 03Expect large incumbents to copy a small product that works, and answer by moving faster than they can rather than by defending features.

What it returned

  • Two years head to head with a twenty person venture funded team on the same product.

  • Competitors that were taking his customers later closed, were acquired, or moved to other markets, and creators who chose them years ago now switch across

  • Wayfair built its own version of the AI interior design tool.

  • Zue shelved Scriv after hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars lost, citing an overcrowded AI chatbot market and his own move into corporate B2B as the mistake.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

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