Do you do competitive research before starting to work on an idea?
I recently got really excited about an idea and started working on it, only to realise that it's already been done. Quite a few times, actually.
Sure, there are always ways to differentiate, find a niche, or approach the problem differently. But it got me thinking: At what point do you decide a market is too saturated to enter?
Do you still go for it if you believe you can bring something different to the table, or do you take it as a sign to look for another idea?
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I build in about the most crowded category there is right now, AI song generators, so I went in knowing it was done many times over. Two things made it worth it anyway. First, a lot of the crowd stands on ground that can move: many apps sang through unofficial wrappers around another company's model, and those break when the model under them is retired. My own previous app broke exactly that way, so the rebuild uses only official APIs. Second, the data showed who pays: every early payer was 35 or older and came for an occasion, a birthday, an anniversary. So the difference I am building is not a better generator, it is the occasions around it, reminders and a calendar of the people you make songs for. Saturated by product, not always by reason to buy.
I actually prefer markets that are already crowded. Most of what I build improves something that already exists, usually a tool I was paying for and wasn't happy with. Then I price it a bit lower and make the features better. That's kept my main business going for 22 years. An empty market is the harder one, because you have to prove the need and guess the price.