It’s very reasonable for startups to view other startups as their competition.
If you’re building a CRM, other CRMs are gunning for the same market share you have your eye on. If you’re building a project management tool, there are already more than enough project management tools trying to convince teams they are the one true source of order. So yes, it’s often a smart move to refine your USP against other businesses like yours.
However, there’s an argument to be made about what your real competition is.
It’s the tabs your ideal users already have open. The bookmarks pinned to the top of their browsers. It’s familiarity, “things that work,” expected behavior.
This can look like the WhatsApp group where the team coordinates work. The Google Sheet where a founder tracks leads. The email thread everyone complains about but still uses. The Notion page, Slack channel, Chrome bookmark, calendar invite, or half-broken internal workflow that somehow continues to hold the whole operation together.
That’s your real competition.
Not always because these tools are better than yours. But because people are already overwhelmed by choices in every area of their lives, and any added complexity, new decision, or extra friction is abhorred with something close to religious indignation. When something works “well enough,” users will keep using it. Also, because it is familiar. It is already part of the user’s day. It doesn’t require a new login, a new habit, a new mental model, or one more thing to remember.
This is why modern software is increasingly trying to meet users where they already are. Zendesk, for instance, has expanded its AI agents across ChatGPT, Google Gemini, voice, and messaging channels, pointing to a bigger shift: the product is no longer always the destination. Sometimes, the product has to become part of the route.
This change in approach, for modern software companies, matters because users don’t always want a new home for their problems. Sometimes, they just want the house they already live in to stop leaking.
This also means your product is not just being judged by how useful it is. It is being judged by how much effort it takes to adopt.
How much does a user have to stop, learn, migrate, explain, rebuild, or convince their team to change before your product starts making their life easier?
If the answer is “a lot,” your value had better be painfully obvious.
The better move is to study the habit before you try to replace it. Where are people already doing this badly? What workaround have they accepted? What tool do they keep using, even though it annoys them? That’s where your opening is.
So before you obsess over your next feature, look at the default tab. Look at the spreadsheet, the inbox, the group chat, the workaround, the tool people complain about but keep using anyway. Then ask the harder question: how do you make that existing behavior easier?
Even if it means going the Zendesk route and meeting your users in their house with the tools you need to fix their leaky roof.
How Strong Is Your Case for Switching?
If you’re building something that claims to replace, improve, or simplify an existing behavior, the question is not just whether your product works. It is whether it works well enough for people to change what they already do.
That’s exactly the kind of clarity HackerNoon’s Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is built to test. Does your product solve a real problem for real people? Is the usefulness clear? Is the value strong enough to pull users out of old habits, or smart enough to meet them inside those habits?
If you’re building something meaningful and want to sharpen your positioning while competing for over $150,000 in cash prizes and software credits, this is a solid place to start.
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Get started here!
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Every day, startups are trying to win their way into existing workflows, habits, and defaults. Some are asking users to switch. Others are trying to make the switch feel almost invisible. On that same journey, here are some great startups you should know about.
Meet INFINITY-UP, Pixels n’ Voxels, and Paidia Gaming
INFINITY-UP
INFINITY-UP is a full-cycle game development and gamification studio building mobile, console, AR/VR, Web3, and browser-based gaming experiences for clients worldwide. From concept and design to development, launch, and post-release support, the company helps startups and established businesses turn game ideas into polished interactive products. With 100+ projects, 50+ experts, and services spanning Unity, Unreal, HTML5/WebGL, AR/VR, and gamification, INFINITY-UP is built for teams that want to create engaging digital experiences without assembling an in-house game studio from scratch.
Pixels n’ Voxels
Pixels n’ Voxels is a São Paulo-based creative technology studio working across games, animation, visual effects, XR, Web3, and R&D. Founded in 2023, the company helps teams build interactive digital experiences that move beyond flat content into more immersive worlds.
Paidia Gaming
Paidia Gaming is a women-led gaming and technology company building community-first tools for players, organizers, and gaming brands. Its platform helps gamers connect, learn, and play, while Paidia Bot brings tournament management directly into Discord by automating roles, registration, score reporting, and player-mod communication. For gaming communities that already live inside Discord, Paidia makes competitive play easier to organize without forcing everyone through another clunky platform.
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That’s all for this week.
Until next time, keep building useful things!