Are you in a competitive industry? Start licking your chops!

Is your business in a competitive market? Have lots of competitors? If yes, that's a beautiful thing. Start licking your chops!

Show Notes

Competition is a great thing. When I see an industry with many different competitors, and many companies offering similar services to customers, my mouth starts to water. This tells me that there’s a healthy market of customers spending a lot of money on services that solve their problems. There are several advantages to playing in a competitive market:

A small piece of a big pie = $$

My first SaaS company was in one of the most competitive markets there are – real estate! There were literally hundreds upon hundreds of competitors offering similar products. That didn’t stop us at all. In fact, it actually encouraged us. We knew there was a massive market out there spending money on this service, and we wanted to get our piece of the pie. And believe me, if the market is big enough, even with hundreds of competitors, a small piece of the pie can be very significant. Significant enough to build a 7-figure ARR profitable company, and live a very good lifestyle!

Skip finding “product-market fit”

Another advantage of playing in a competitive market is that you can essentially skip the stage of finding product-market fit. Clearly there’s product-market fit if you’re offering a similar service to other companies that are making money. It’s simply a matter of positioning yourself in a slightly different way, with slightly different value propositions, and pulling some of those customers your way.

Position yourself how you want

How you position yourself is the most important thing when entering a competitive market. Obviously, you don’t want to flat-out copy another company’s product offering. Although you’ll likely be offering very similar services, you want to focus your offering on some sort of unique value in your product or service. For instance, it can be as simple as highlighting your amazing customer support, your more attractive pricing model, a particular feature that’s sleeker, etc.

Define your niche and attack it

When you determine your main differentiators, you can then define your ideal customer, and narrow down on a tight niche in the market. When you clearly define the type of customer you’re after, it improves your messaging, marketing material, it makes selling very easy, and allows you to gain traction quickly.

Next time someone says that a market is too crowded, or they deter you from starting a business because of too much competition, just ignore them and start licking your chops!

founderviews.com

What is Founder Views - SaaS, Business, and Beyond?

Founder Views is a podcast for SaaS builders who want real conversations, not recycled playbooks.

Hosted by Kosta Panagoulias, a 2x SaaS founder, the show features in-the-trenches conversations with SaaS CEOs, operators, and experts. Each episode digs into the decisions, strategies, wins, and struggles that shape real companies - practical insights from people actively building, not theorizing.

While the core focus is SaaS growth, leadership, and execution, the podcast also leaves room for broader discussions that help founders think better - whether that’s economics, technology, markets, or other big-picture business topics.

If you want raw, easy-to-follow conversations with people who've actually built something, you’ll feel right at home.