We recently had a great question come up in our Crowdfunded Community about competition in crowdfunding that I want to answer here, as I’m sure it’s something that a lot of entrepreneurs have thought about from time to time.
Gary asked:
Hi all. I’m looking at launching my product around May/June time, using the launchboom academy, and I just found out a competitor has launched now, with the delivery date around our launch date. This product is doing CRAZY well, so I’m wondering if you think it’s a positive thing or that maybe we missed the boat a bit? Of course there are some positives to take from it, plus I can see their community data (if anyone has some ninja tricks to help me get more data from their live camp that would be great!) But it is still a little concerning!
This is a great question that I answered directly in the community, but I want to break it down for everyone here as well!
Take notes on what they’re doing
First, know that it’s a good thing that you’re not launching at the same time. Your competitor launching now means that their project will be a thing of the past by the time you launch your product. Take this time to learn as much as you can from the other campaign, and then take that knowledge forward to make your campaign even better than your competitor’s was.
Competition in crowdfunding is good
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about competitive markets.
When you see products similar to yours doing well on the market, it can be easy to feel discouraged or think that someone else is stealing your spot. This isn’t true, and that kind of thinking can really hurt in the long run.
Most market categories are in the billions of dollars. Even in crowdfunding, which is a smaller space than ecommerce or retail, there’s still room for multiple seven-figure campaigns in the same category. This is even true for extremely similar products.
Let’s take eBikes as an example. The eBike market is currently around $41.1 billion, and is expected to grow to $70 billion by 2027. That means that an eBike campaign that raises a million dollars is roughly 0.002439024% of the market. That’s less than one percent of one percent. (I’ll let you do the math on a $100,000 campaign!)
2020 saw a handful of eBike launches that each raised over a million dollars. Our own Rocket eBike had very little trouble hitting $1,500,000. Sure, this took a lot of hard work and creativity from our team, but that’s the case for every launch we have. That’s still an extremely small share of the market; most entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to manufacture enough inventory to take 1% of the eBike market. The takeaway here is that there is plenty of space for healthy competition in crowdfunding.
Make it work for you
If you have a great product and utilize the tools laid out in LaunchBoom Academy, invest the time and resources, and continue to learn and grow, you will succeed. This is hard enough as it is without being discouraged by competition.
The bottom line? Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners.
Want to learn more about how to launch your product, even in a competitive market? Click here to watch a free training jam-packed with knowledge that you do not want to miss!
