#010 - The Copycat Playbook - How to Stay Ahead of New Competition
Stuck with Success and Standoffs
I think it’s natural that as time goes on, I want to share more of my direct client work experience on The Rift.
Today is your lucky day, you will get to read one of the first outputs of my recent work with a client.
Marketplaces are cool.
Established platforms, with Apps that improve the functionality that the big guys are too slow to build natively.
Living, breathing ecosystems that generate businesses and livelihoods all around.
(Let’s be positive for this piece, I’ll cover Sherlocking some other time perhaps)
It has and will exist for any Product that goes full blast;
Shopify has it’s App Marketplace
WordPress has it’s Plugin Ecosystem
Discord has it’s Integrations
Monday.com has it’s Apps
The list goes on and on.
If you've used any platform, you know Apps are essential to meet the unique needs of a rapidly evolving user base.
There’s a reason why iOS and Android are dominant. It's not just the OS, it's the breadth of Apps users demand on their smartphones. R.I.P. Lumia and BB OS (arguably better, or is that nostalgia?).
Similarly, in the B2B space, large platforms often can’t keep up with the ever increasing demands of its users, so the only natural way to scale is to open up to ‘integrations’ and then eventually have your own ‘Marketplace’.
I’ve been working in the ‘Marketplace’ landscape for the last 8 months, and have learned a lot. And in today’s issue - I want to go over one problem that I see all Marketplace Apps have -> Copycat Apps.
Why are Copycats a Unique Problem on Marketplaces
Unlike traditional Products that are standalone and perhaps garner a much larger audience. Marketplace Apps, App's that are on some existing Product’s Marketplace - are purpose built by definition.
Users need a specific solution or integration
You build a MVP for that need
It takes off -> and you have yourself a successful Product
Most ‘indie’ Marketplace Apps, how would I call it, start out like this.
But here’s the core issue - Marketplace-based Products are inherently easy to copy.
You identified a gap in a platform's functionality, and solved it. Great!
But now, you've also created a blueprint for others.
So then the next person who does it. Can do it faster, cheaper, and better.
Effectively, all they need to do is, ‘copy’ your idea and sell it for half the price.
Your Product Wasn’t ‘hard to copy’ to Begin With
And now you have a new competitor on the Marketplace, offering pretty much what you do, and basically for half the price.
Side step: This happens outside of the Marketplace as well, where we get Apps like ‘Clubhouse’ making PMs go ‘Is that a Product? or just a feature?’ - and most small single feature Apps get quickly integrated by the big players if they ever become popular.
When your Product lives within a Marketplace, you will face copycats.
This creates constant pressure to evolve, to stand out.
Otherwise, you risk getting stuck in a race to the bottom on price.
Drawing from my experiences, and from countless conversations with Marketplace startups facing this issue. I hope to educate you perhaps on a game plan that could work out for us here.
See at the end of the day, with any Product, Marketplace or not, building a sustainable business is the goal.
Any advantage you have ‘today’ will vanish as soon as the gap gets closed.
So it is your duty, to take a lead, and then keep the lead.
So How Does One Respond to Copycat Competition
Now I don’t wanna go full 7 powers of Hamilton here, since I believe that should be reserved for a bit more mature Product. So my solution, for you, for now, will be below. An abridged version, let’s call it the 3.14 Powers of Hamilton I guess.
Having worked closely in the Marketplace ecosphere, I believe the following 3 things to be the top priority IF you already have a lead, with your Product.
I am also using levels here to kinda highlight the urgency of how you should think about em:
Level 1: Immediate responses (days or weeks)
Level 2: Medium-term differentiation (pricing and positioning)
Level 3: Long-term strategic initiatives (changing how customers see your offering)
Fighting Marketplace competition requires a layered approach.
Combining immediate actions with long-term strategy.
The framework I am suggesting moves from quick, tactical actions to more strategic initiatives. By working through these levels, you could build a complete competitive strategy.
Level 1: Immediate Response - Support Excellence and Positive Reviews
When a new competitor offers similar features at a lower price, here’s one thing they will lack -
Customer support.
This is your quickest win. Competitors can copy features. But they can't instantly replicate your experience or customer relationships.
Make your support airtight. Business users, especially on platforms like Monday.com or Shopify, value reliable support. Their complex projects and eCommerce stores depend on it.
Excellent support is an excellent differentiator, one that can be your first step towards becoming hard to copy.
Here are some things you should be looking to implement A.S.A.P
Cut response times dramatically. See what kind of issues take the longest to resolve, work on common themes across them, and prioritize reducing the turnaround on them.
Create User feedback based roadmaps. Show how you're fixing issues. Transparency goes a long way to offer condolence. Let your users know if there are issues that will take some time to fix, and let them know you are working on them.
Expand your support team. Your first scalability hire besides the dev team should always be the support team. You as the founder should not be the single source of truth to all support concerns.
There’s this great case study which I can’t find the link to on how there are acquisition firms that focus on rising Products with weak support. And just by acquiring them, improving their support, allows them to flip them up sometimes up to 5x the initial value.
As a small Product, exceptional support is the moat that you can almost always rely on, especially on a Marketplace Product where user’s businesses rely on you.
Support also ensures increased loyalty to your team, and any future initiatives you will build (which you will be doing eventually if you want to keep your lead).
So you say, ‘Hey Saqib, our support team is excellent and way can’t do any better there’
Then, are you doing enough to leverage the success of your Support team?
Enter, social proof.
The second thing that will make you hard to copy in this journey.
They can copy your feature, but they can’t copy your support, or your social proof - you get the idea.
Basically, any immediate approach to fighting competition should be effort spent on things that make you harder to copy - first and foremost.
Now in the case of Marketplace Apps, I believe support and social proof are the biggest 2 factors. But in other cases, there will always be 2-3 things that have the highest ROI if you put them against the Y axis of being anti-copycat.
Level 2: Strategic Pricing and Value Differentiation
Now here’s the thing, no matter how good your Product is on a Marketplace, if there is a copycat - pricing will eventually be the discussion on the table.
And it is the trap that can make you race down to the bottom if you keep thinking of pricing in terms of x dollars for y inputs/outputs.
Fun fact, as I write this, OpenAI is having a similar problem where their pricing of tokens make no sense as other providers have figured out better/cheaper ways to do the same thing. Now OAI is in a similar rut where they need to price around ‘value’, I guess.
Similarly, in order to outcompete, it may be fine to refactor your pricing to stay ahead of the competition once, or twice, or thrice, but keep that up and you won’t be competing, you will be catching up.
Instead, take this opportunity to revisit your pricing and think of it doing differently this time.
First of all, you need to communicate your pricing better. You are a bigger player, you have more users, and you have more costs - but the customer doesn’t know that yet.
Figure out how you can offer the advantages of being a bigger player, through your pricing descriptors. Things like mention of support turnaround times, or 24/7 availability, or custom onboarding team, or better trial offerings - try to do things a new competitor can’t or will not be able to do.
Then, start experimenting with value-based pricing. Move beyond simple feature counts. Traditional pricing is "X dollars for Y features." This commoditizes your offering.
And yes, I understand that consumers hate this approach, but for business users, this is still the best way to justify a purchase. Your value is your maturity, if a business needs to rely on you, they need to be sure you will stick around, let that fact comfort you.
Lastly, avoid pricing that makes direct comparisons easy. Per unit pricing works when you are new, but now you aren’t new and do a lot of things that can’t be ‘quantified’. So if your pricing is still X things for Y dollar, you are just shooting yourself in the foot.
And here’s the thing, I don’t want the takeaway here to be ‘You should just charge more because you deserve more’ - the takeaway here should be that you should charge according to the value you provide, which can go beyond the features of your Product.
Actually, oftentimes, what works is to have a pricing tier where there is an option where you don’t make any money. Because you want the users to get to your platform, understand the value, and then go for the more pricier option.
PLG and what not, a lot of strategies come into play when playing with pricing. But on the Marketplace, your pricing needs to be diverse and catering to a lot of different types of user bases.
Offer more options than basic tiers. Create "loss leader" options to compete on price. And premium "halo" packages with high-value features at higher margins.
This diversified pricing prevents customers from dismissing you as "too expensive." It creates opportunities to upsell.
It lets you maintain healthy margins while competing on price in certain segments. This is yet another thing that makes you harder to copy.
Level 3: Long-Term Strategic Positioning and Product Evolution
Lastly, in the long run, even though you are in a Marketplace - you need to think like a standalone Product.
Competition will keep coming up, and new ideas will pop in your head on what to build next. BUT before all that, you need to start working on your ‘Product Strategy’
Start by creating feedback loops with your best customers. Dedicate 10-20 hours a month to talking to them. Validate adjacent features that complement your core functionality.
These conversations identify high-value opportunities. They deepen relationships with key customers. They provide early validation before you commit resources.
Your lead is your current customers, don’t waste that opportunity.
This customer-centric approach ensures your expansion meets real needs. You'll naturally differentiate from competitors focused only on copying your original features.
Position yourself as more than just a utility. Don't be "the App that does X." Be "the champion for cross-functional work," or some other broader theme. I plan to write on how to work on your value proposition as you grow someday - stay tuned.
Your end goal should be to be very specific and detailed on ‘who’ your App is for. Because it is much better to be ‘loved’ by a group of your customers than to be ‘liked’ by all your customers. The thing that will make you hardest to copy.
Here’s how you can think of strategy in the broader sense: https://therift.news/p/001-the-paradox-of-strategic-planning
So What’s Next For Your Marketplace App
You improved your support, worked on your social proof, figured out your pricing, and now have a solid strategy to grow your Product in the long run - what now?
Now is the time to get out of the Marketplace.
As my night gig, I help freelancers and professionals with their careers. And a common advice is that start on a platform, get successful, and then go direct to find new clients.
This is basically the Product version of it.
Your App started as a solo feature integration on a platform
It grew to meet more needs as customers grew
You added more features as time went on
And now you have a ‘suite’ you can take outside of the Marketplace
It’s time to graduate.
With or without my help – I wish you the best.
As always, thanks for reading this edition of The Rift. If you have any feedback.
A comment below would be appreciated.