In this episode I also talk about how AI has changed the game and that more competition will be coming to market faster. Learn more about what this means for B2B SaaS founders everywhere.
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Episode Transcript
Hey folks, Sean here and today what I wanna talk to you about is how you should be approaching responding when you find new competitive options to what it is you are trying to bring to the market as a solution, perhaps in the format of a B2B SaaS. So I’ve already talked to you about. The fact that I’ve recently launched a new product, it is essentially for those that are managing podcasts, it helps you create show notes and things like that, and it does it in an automated way.
So one of the things to note is that due to AI and how basically chat G P T and tools like that and how incredible the functionality is relatively, relatively easy to use. The amount of functionality that they can bring relatively quickly. We’re seeing a lot of products pop up that can, that are leveraging these AI tools to try to solve certain problems.
So the first thing to note is that anyone out there with a product that especially is starting new, more than likely there’s gonna be other people working on that same problem and bringing a version. Of a solution similar to what it is that you’re building to market now, faster and more frequently than ever.
So you’re gonna be seeing more competition and less time. That’s what I’m expecting. I’m expecting the AI tools to be providing those options to entrepreneurs everywhere. Number two, your response to the competition. Essentially should be the same as it should have been before. Number one, it’s a good thing if people are bringing products, similar products to market.
It means that there’s more than likely a demand for what it is you are trying to solve, meaning that you probably have found a pretty good problem worth solving. So that is a huge hurdle to C to kind of clear number one. The second component is your response essentially should be the same, uh, as it was before, just because there’s more products and they’re coming to market faster.
Doesn’t mean that your approach should change. You need to figure out essentially what those products are doing and how your approach is unique and if it. Isn’t unique and you need to figure out how to make it unique. You need to better, you need to be able to understand how to answer the question as best as possible.
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When someone asks you, how are you different than X? Or How are you different than Y? So that’s what I’m doing now. Now that I’m finding these new competitive products, which is partly what I was expecting as I opened up the tool that I was using to my network and early adopters, then they started giving me feedback.
What about this tool? What about that tool, et cetera. So, They’re helping me perform this research and find other options that are either currently being sold to them or other options they’re considering and have found themselves. So that’s number one. The other element of it too, is that in order to make what you are doing more unique, there’s different levers that you can pull in order to do that, right?
You can go deeper into your target market. You can go wider in terms of the functionality that you’re offering, right? You need to better understand what it is your target market. And as specialized as that can get needs, and then you need to try to address those needs better than the way the competition ultimately is tempting to today.
The other thing to consider as well is that just because there’s other products on the market, typically us as entrepreneurs and B2B SaaS founders are much more aware of those tools out there. Then our target market ultimately is. So if your market is huge, and I’m dabbling in podcasting, which is ridiculously big and growing.
Kind of a lot of those products can, uh, be successful simultaneously. But important to note here is what I would say is that your target market may not be aware of the other products on the market, so whomever you’re trying to sell to, they might be relatively new to this game or they may not be aware of the other products on the market.
So, The reason why I mentioned that is because your real competition is their existing solution. And their existing solution might be them. It might be a process, it might be a service, right? It, it’s not necessarily another tool. So couple things I want you to take away from this is that the bar has been lowered considerably in terms of what it takes to get a product to market that is more capable and to bring those products to market faster and probably offer them more cost effective as well too.
So competition is gonna rise considerably. I’ll see a lot more innovation, a lot more products to market, but your process shouldn’t change. Do the homework. Figure out what they do, what they don’t do, and figure out which direction you can take your product to make yours unique or ultimately a one of one, or competing in much smaller, uh, competing in a market where you are the obvious choice, essentially.
That’s kind of your end result goal. But the other thing to keep in mind is what your target market is ultimately consider. Your competition, and that might not be one of these other products. It might just be a process or some type of steps that they’re following.