[javajosh]

Isn't this usually the purview of bizdev competitive analysis? I'm sure there are agencies that would be happy to do this for a fee (and probably specialists in different business categories, to boot) but I don't see how this could ever be a piece of software.

Anyway, this is an odd problem to have. It seems to me that most startups move through the idea phase rapidly, and then execute fairly rapidly. That is, the implementation should follow the idea rapidly, tested in the real world, rather than in the imperfect simulations of your co-workers minds.

[kappamax]

Well in a startup the responsibility of research should be shared by everyone. In our case engineering actually did the competitive analysis AFTER we finished our MVP, while waiting on bizdev. What I'm asking is, is this normal or somewhat abnormal in the startup world, and an isolated problem?

Or are there startups that proceed without doing their homework so to say?

[javajosh]

Yeah, you've got to do solid competition research before building something.

(It sometimes happens that there's something out there that you've never heard of (and no-one you know has heard of it either), in which case you discover the competitor later. Really nothing you can do about this.)