I am working on an EdTech idea and weeks away from MVP. The problem I am trying to solve is student and industry gap by simply connecting students with industry professionals. But LinkedIn also working on student and professional relationship and they have advantage as they are the largest professional network. How can you compete with them? They have resources, tools , team and finance. I want to be entrepreneur and academia is something my interest and working on idea for some time.
It would be very difficult if not impossible to compete head-on with a similar product.
But if you have something unique and truly meaningful then that differentiation and fulfillment of a user's need will help you get that initial momentum.
LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google... weren't built in a day. One step at a time.
Thinking about the competition is useful but thinking about the customer is equally important.
Start small, validate your product and who your customer is, then focus on scaling up.
If your product is valuable then customers will be prepared to pay for it, this will also help with funding and strategic partnerships.
In one of my companies, I built up a user base of over 100k users fairly quickly, it's not that difficult if you have something unique, focus on the customer first while being aware of the rest of the market.
Good luck!
