Why competition is a good thing

Key Takeaways

hello my FR and friends and welcome to my podcast General musings my name is Kevin and this podcast is somewhere where I talk about whatever is front of mine for me in any given week usually in some way that's related to frontend development last week I talked about the importance of just getting started and not worrying about the Polish on things just like go and make content and all of that and after I finished recording that episode I saw a post on Blue Sky from a host of an F1 podcast that I listen to called M Apex and in it he was talking about content creation so it was kind of funny just because it was sort of content creation related that other one and it was literally as soon as I finished writing or recording that episode that I saw it and in his post he mentioned how a lot of people don't make content because the topic they're in they feel like the topic that they're interested in is already too crowded right it's everything these days is already a saturated Market why should I go and and get into that world because there's already people doing that and actually the way he phrased it a little bit was better so read directly from his post I'll link to it in the description uh below as well so his name is his name is Richard but he goes by spanners on on social media and his podcast and what he said was I've heard a lot of people being put off making content because of a crowded Market you're not going to be the top podcast or channel in your field but you don't need to be the beauty of this game is that you can find a percentage of people that really connect with what you do the big players are good for you they grow the total Market they bring in people and and a small number of them will find you as well and want you what you're specifically offering if someone doesn't like what you do then recommend them another podcast in your field for them to try don't try to change to fit them and I really love that message for me I thought it was fantastic but I also think it doesn't only apply to content creation because I hear things coming up a lot of the time where developers have an idea for something and they don't create it because there's already companies doing that right so they have whatever the idea is like oh this would be a cool thing a cool product or a cool thing that I want to do there's already like six other websites offering that or six different products that are already doing that so I'm not going to bother if anything that's proof of concept that it's a good idea because there's already other people doing it and making money from it so that's how I see it personally and again why are you doing it I think is a big part but like I mean as as a really quick example here I've started working on my own course platform I've been talking about that a bit recently because I'm putting a lot of time into it so it's very front of mine for me and I started doing that because I'm not happy with all the other ones out that are out there and there's a lot of them out there the problem with all those other ones and they're really good products most of them are fantastic but they all force me to make compromises in how I'm working nothing is exactly how I want it and for a lot of that it's actually really frustrating for me and because I'm a developer I can solve that right I can just make something that works exactly how I want it to work it's a lot of work though so like that's the balance is is it worth all the time and effort I'm putting into it instead of the compromises that I've had to put up with and after doing years of courses right now I've decided like for a long time I was like no it's not worth it I'll deal with the compromises and just more and more and more frustration building up I've decided it is worth it right and I think part of it does a big part of it is that balance of is it worth it and how you're measuring the success of whatever you're creating right so if you're creating a a service right a SAS and for you success is selling it for seven figures or more then chances are it won't happen and yes it's very hard to do not saying you can't lots of people out there do it so if that's your plan go for it but do a lot of research into how to create a sellable product and put all the work into it and everything and it can definitely pay off but success could also mean like you just have a cool product to put on your CV and that's it you made this cool thing it works it serves you and then you're happy I built another thing I think I've talked about it before where it's for bouldering and just tracking my sessions there was an existing one that was part of this bigger thing and I didn't want all the fluff I just made this simple thing that I can do on my phone in like 30 seconds after each time I go just to keep track of every one of those sessions I'm doing and for me like that was a win it makes my life easier I like it it didn't take me long to put together no one else uses it it's just for me but for me that was a win it was worth the time and everything that I put into it and it could be potentially something that I build out into something bigger in the long run but that's not why I'm doing it but I and then obviously for my course platform it's a bit different because their like success is does it work for my students and does it give me something more custom and better to work with than all the other options that were on the market and because I'm building it unique for me and exactly what I need then yes it's doing exactly that plus I have the benefit of learning a lot along the way so there was a lot of benefits in me in doing it even though it's something that already exists that's out there in terms of for you this could be for anything right it could be starting a blog a YouTube channel a podcast your own product whatever it is but just before you start it ask yourself you know what does success mean if I do this and be realistic with what it is and as long as you think that yes I can achieve that because if you if you something that's unachievable you probably won't continue with it whereas if you think that the success you can like whatever you're like this mean it's successful I get 500 views on a YouTube video that could be success for me 100 views when I started my channel was like holy cow this is amazing right there's more people watching this video than when I was teaching in the classroom so that was successful to me so if something like that is Success then you could achieve that with a realistic goal and you're going to feel motivated because you've gotten that success so I think that's the really important part there and not having to be like Richard said in his post like the you don't need to be the top dog you don't need to be the biggest Channel out there whatever it is that you're doing the most popular blog the most successful product you can have your little niche and be super successful as whatever it is you're doing with that Niche and I think that's just really important to remember and don't get dissuaded because you have a cool idea that you want to do and so don't get dissuaded because you have a really cool idea that you really want to create but you're just like ah someone else has already done it right so go and build that awesome thing and once you've done let me know about it and share it with the world so we can all see how awesome it is and that's it for this week thank you so much for listening and until next time don't forget to make your corner of the internet just a little bit more awesome