How To Compete With Amazon and Google

Step inside the Group Partner Lounge to hear Y Combinator Group Partners Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel and Brad Flora discuss the traps founders often fall into when looking at the competition. They identify the particular types of companies you should watch out for and many more you are wasting your time worrying about.
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Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Competitors
00:51 - Fear of the Competition
01:42 - Lies Founders Tell Themselves
02:32 - Most Common Outcomes
03:28 - Perception vs Reality
06:57 - Copycats - Twitch
08:15 - Back to Basics
08:50 - Real Competitive Concerns
09:40 - A Better Product - Socialcam
10:14 - Structural Advantages - Kiko and Perfect Audience
11:20 - "Good Enough" example - Microsoft Teams and Slack
12:30 - FAANG Fails
13:40 - Instacart vs Amazon
14:16 - Cruise vs Google
15:00 - Build a Better Product
#ycombinator #startups #competition #bigtech

[@ycombinator]

What mental traps do you fall into when looking around at the competition?

[@nbhhcghgfyg]

Fundraising story

[@Politirized]

Building a product for a market that already has a lot of products, but there is no clear/big winners. It is daunting to think that your product is going to pass through all of those graves.

[@BigDataLogin]

How true 👏 😅

[@VenturiLife]

Over-estimating them.

[@mukisajw]

Because the competitor raised 5 million dollars 😂😂😂

[@Okeh_Emmanuel]

This was timely, we are at a point in our company where the competition who recently raised 7 figures and pumping most of the money into ads have given us some concerns... yet our numbers are good and we seem to be making better product decisions inspite no funding round or big media publicity yet.

[@markg5986]

Excellent! Keep up the good work, @Okeh

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Competitors 00:51 - Fear of the Competition 01:42 - Lies Founders Tell Themselves 02:32 - Most Common Outcomes 03:28 - Perception vs Reality 06:57 - Copycats - Twitch 08:15 - Back to Basics 08:50 - Real Competitive Concerns 09:40 - A Better Product - Socialcam 10:14 - Structural Advantages - Kiko and Perfect Audience 11:20 - "Good Enough" example - Microsoft Teams and Slack 12:30 - FAANG Fails 13:40 - Instacart vs Amazon 14:16 - Cruise vs Google 15:00 - Build a Better Product

[@philmckay9973]

Why no tshirt print biz?

[@terrylennon]

Definitely felt the fear/pain of 'looking over at competitors' super super keenly - especially the point of seeing them raise a mammoth Series A, and being like "that's it *kicks over table* ...it's all over!" I think that the piece on talking to users and having that intimate understanding of their problem is so understated - almost like this solves the paradigm of watching a competitor blow up too, but knowing that despite the alarm bells ringing, you're still solving user problems and providing value.

[@londonl.5892]

I wrote a piece about similar worries as a startup founder on Medium (London Lowmanstone - "Network Effects are Software’s Defensible Moat"). So great to see people who have actually talked to so many different startups and can give examples of failures and successes and the ratio that's actually seen in the world, rather than guesses based out of fear.

[@joshwilson8092]

The truth is you aren't competing against Amazon, you're competing against a junior product manager who works at Amazon. Once you realise that the challenge is far less daunting.

[@brandoYT]

Sounds similar to Tesla strategy - focus on the product, constantly improve the product. Competitors are constantly creating new products [new engines, new body style, new seats etc.] Tesla focus on product to scale production which cuts costs and leads to best profit margin in the vehicle industry.

[@allwecanseeisaboveusnow]

Elon Musk was also a millionaire before he acquired Tesla, his capital allowed his company to scale an amount about 99% of the population wouldn’t be able to do without venture capital, loans, etc

[@Okeh_Emmanuel]

You mean Ford or other motor companies ?

[@GireshKumarS7]

Ty ygy

[@derek-yap]

When big companies try to copy features or products a lot of times they don’t get it quite right because of all the politics and bureaucracy in their organizations. Those things can dilute a great idea.

[@carlosbraga9381]

thx for the insight Derek!

[@rudyfraser7117]

Needed to hear this this week. Thank you 🙏🏾

[@Daniel-ny7bn]

These guys are therapists for tech startups

[@KaizenWithLevers]

Thnx to the admin for making such a great job on YC lists. Super easy to navigate them

[@RoadmapMBA]

Love it guys! Keep up the great work!!

[@vishnunallani]

great video right on time when i needed it.

[@rohankamath88]

Hey YC Team, Please do a case study on Fast in the next week or two. Would love to hear your take and deep dive on what happened and some learnings for us all from the whole episode.

[@hsuyuting1993]

Finally a new video! Can't wait!

[@purplefan204]

Awesome insights! Wish I had heard this a year or so back!!

[@StreamAgency]

These videos cut deep and I keep coming back for more.

[@SportsIncorporated]

How about if it's 1990 or the early 1990's and you want to build an online encyclopedia (edited by both companies and individuals). Microsoft already has an encyclopedia on CD or DVD. Wouldn't you think they would take the encyclopedia online.

[@akifyaldir]

That's great! Thank you.

[@sachinelearning]

"They have replaced their enthusiasm and replaced it with fear" - This is a 10000% true

[@hoangvantrong1]

Great video for startup

[@BuffettAnswers]

Amazing and simple. Build a better product and really care about the customer, because FANG will only scratch the surface and won’t go above and beyond

[@keyurgandhi7102]

Hello I want to know how startup company can tie up with big companies for any purpose of startup like API, some information, etc

[@SrikantShirisha]

Reminds me of the Monopoly story. I think Mervin Gardens is till date wrongly spelled because it was wrongly spelled in the originally game!

[@jonnelsloane]

Great content

[@zetendra]

Hey ycombinator admin, would you mind creating playlist for partner lounge series? So I don't need to check it out every time. :)

[@ycombinator]

Already done :) kzbin.info/aero/PLQ-uHSnFig5M3hh2-t0847rxhrfd7Wdtj

[@rowancode]

Holy cow how this could have so few views? This is gold

[@ilidio6617]

13:27 that is a good point

[@jessenorthcutt9926]

. . . Yes, yes, . . . When Brad Flora brings it back to simply "building a better product" as the priority, rather than the other structural aspects . . .

[@productivitymonster]

when the problem is small but growing, large companies may ignore it for a long enough time for you to build another unicorn)

[@SrikantShirisha]

Google drive vs dropbox? Google meet vs Zoom? Why are the two different? Why dropbox was affected by drive more than how zoom was affected by meet?

[@prashantbagga2580]

are you guys using riverside for this video?

[@KaizenWithLevers]

thats free publicity bro. They are not going to do it!!

[@El_Diablo_12]

8:00 when Twitch turned around 15:00 You need a better product

[@waymanharris1284]

#Awesome

[@fletchermclaughlin8971]

Changed the title lol

[@user-tm5po2ej5u]

Soon i going to because I can because i got the power

[@zackvalos1591]

I Reject Death as a certainty. Y canit I just back up my brain live online until i can come back alive offline. .

[@jatingarg2308]

You don't beat big tech You become 1 😛

[@suharsh96]

Wanna join a desi community for this y'all? Ping me

[@LearnWithBahman]

Amazon actually won in cloud but there were not even close to number 1 in cloud when cloud startups started. Structural advantage sucks.

[@CuriosityMonster]

The indian guy: "ipods are a waste of money." 😄

[@nictuku1084]

Cameras are too zoomed in, IMHO

[@projectDesignAndFunction]

No my way to be the next Amazon

[@peeps9395]

I am the first commenter, that's how much dedicated I am, take me in yc or you will be cursed 😶‍🌫️

[@romanerrandonea7791]

Hello, I am the CEO of Elexion, an information brokerage platform. We are engaging with people in Silicon Valley to learn about emerging issues in communicating this information to Latin American entrepreneurs! If you are a citizen We would like to know the problems that are occurring. Write us....

[@KaizenWithLevers]

what you mean?

[@anirudhashok5283]

Teams >> Slack

[@philmckay9973]

When i see google search….all i see is Yahoo! Search 2000 drenched in payola

[@vibhoo]

Over Time. Microsoft teams has become the very good, the intergration with the email, calendar and other MS product is best.

[@jashmota5054]

Are you being lead by fear, or love?

[@kolacao8134]

What do you mean by love?

[@jashmota5054]

@@kolacao8134 just caring about user's problems and solving them.