Or even worse: that instead of competing with you on quality and reach they start giving it away, before inevitably going bust. They'll destroy the market for you anyway...
But that risk always exists, even for funded companies these risks are present. It's an arms race and if your opponent reaches for the nuclear option you have to be very patient and stable if you intend to wait them out and they may even succeed.
That's where our unfair advantage comes in. We know already some companies who work on replicating what we do and they have good chances to make this happen, but...
- Our product is hard to replicate and this will take them time and give them a lot of headache. We know some companies gave up.
- We build our own competitor in the same niche right now (under different leadership but I still hold control) so we cover the first and second spot in it. They are talented and can copy us first. So if people want choice they will get that.
- We dominate the conversation and have some things in place that ensure it will stay like this.
Regardless of all this, I'm fine if we would loose the top spot because the market is growing so fast that even a smaller piece of the pie is a decent sized one and we keep the whole operation extremely lean and focused so we we will stay profitable no matter what.
But that risk always exists, even for funded companies these risks are present. It's an arms race and if your opponent reaches for the nuclear option you have to be very patient and stable if you intend to wait them out and they may even succeed.