Look Under the Furniture

When you vacuum a house, you have to pick up the furniture and vacuum under it if you want the place really clean.  When you look at a seed stage startup, you have to look all over the place to see if there is something else or someone else that can compete.

I saw the news that Garmin is bringing a menstrual cycle calculator to its product line.  I am sure Apple can do this with its watch as well.  Eventually, everyone will have the app on their platform and it will be table stakes.  That’s commoditized tech and there is no marginal profit in it.

One of the toughest things to do when you look at a company is trying to imagine who else could enter.  Who might have the desire to enter?   You have to assume that even if there aren’t competitors if it is a good idea that someone somewhere will compete.  I used to tell classes when I lectured to them that even if they thought their idea was totally unique, someone somewhere in China and India probably has the same idea.  There are billions of people and billions of ideas.  To succeed in startups, it’s all about finding product-market fit and executing.