1 & 2) I crashed the market but only after the other guy had soften clients into the service. I sold it at a price level where competition couldn’t keep up. It didn’t really hurt me in the long term although it changed my plans short term.
3) So what, every time you face completion you’ll just run away? You have a six months head start. Work on it. He’s doing the marketing with that Kickstarter campaign, you ship the product.
4) You make it sound like it’s your fault that competition caught up. Either you think that someone stole your idea, or you need a reality check (no pun intended). Competition would occur anytime, you may think that it’s bad it happened before launching but it could be equally bad if a year from now someone with deep pockets took an aim at your market. Bottom line, competition is a given, learn to live with that. Use it to make your product better.
I usually get the idea from the comments on HN that competing on price alone just doesn't work. Do you think that's a myth or did you have special case at hand?
I guess that depends on the amount of competitors. If there are a lot of companies offering the same product then lowering prices wouldn’t do you any good long term. If on the other hand you’re competing against one or two, then you could easily drive them off the market. The latter worked in my case, I was only competing against one guy and like the OP I had a head start. I had the luxury of selling too cheap because I’ve already invested the time and money into building the product. He hadn’t.
3) So what, every time you face completion you’ll just run away? You have a six months head start. Work on it. He’s doing the marketing with that Kickstarter campaign, you ship the product.
4) You make it sound like it’s your fault that competition caught up. Either you think that someone stole your idea, or you need a reality check (no pun intended). Competition would occur anytime, you may think that it’s bad it happened before launching but it could be equally bad if a year from now someone with deep pockets took an aim at your market. Bottom line, competition is a given, learn to live with that. Use it to make your product better.