That's one of the canonical dumb investor questions. We try not to ask those. Google could blow most startups out of the water if they chose to focus on building exactly the same thing. What protects startups is that in practice big competitors can only focus on a limited number of things at once.
User indifference is a much, much greater danger for startups than competitors, big or small. So we advise startups to focus on that. What's going to kill you is the Back button, not Google.
> "Google could blow most startups out of the water if they chose to focus on building exactly the same thing."
I'm not sure that's even true - look at buzz and wave. For all the time money and effort they've spent on that area they seem to have little return.
That sort of app isn't something you can win by technology alone, you need to capture users in a way that the users feel comfortable with.
But there is some history here, if I remember right, kiko (YC funded calendar) decided to close and sell on ebay when Google released their own calendar.
Key word being "startups" I'd hardly call Twitter a startup when Buzz came out. And hardly call... the email industry? a startup when wave was launched.
I don't think that's the factor at all in that case. If buzz and twitter were launched at the same time, twitter would win. Buzz did too many things wrong - privacy, being integrated into gmail, not as open API etc, no arbitrary restriction on length to get hype, etc
Plus, being launched by Google, may actually be a curse. I doubt the xbox would be as successful if more people actually knew microsoft was behind it.
Startups have a great advantage in that they're assumed by users to be new/fresh/good guys/underdogs/etc etc
A somewhat tangential point, but does anyone else feel that if wave had been integrated into gmail and buzz hadn't, the two products would have had a much better chance at success?
Is Google "doing it" really on the list of concerns for most startups? They do web scale computation really, really well. They have a nifty email client. They're the world's best advertising firm. And, oh yeah, search. Outside of those competencies... their record of success is underwhelming.
I don’t think it’s a concern of most startups but it’s definitely one of most VCs. I think most VCs were either active as VCs or working in the industry back in the late 90s when Microsoft entering a market meant the death knell for any other company in that market. So that fear has carried over into today with Google taking Microsoft’s place as the dominant company in the industry.
The fact that Google hasn’t been near as successful at entering new markets doesn't seem to have entered the equation.
The analytics example at least is really flakey ... plenty of web analytics companies didn't close up shop after Google's transformation of Urchin, a few years later they're still running and new ones are still emerging.
Google fails at a lot more than they succeed at. Chances are very good if Google enters a market they'll suck at it, and if you excel at it maybe they'll buy you if they want to own that market.
All you even have to do to beat them is provide any way for people to reach you for support.
Part of this is also due to the fact that the analytics business is so multi-faceted and had many valuable niches. That fact, combined with the increasing volume and variety of data people need to understand, makes the industry even more viable as time goes by.
Absolutely, I'm doing it for games and with quite some success.
But I think there's more to it than just that analytics is a particularly versatile industry, most of the stuff Google does could be retooled to solve x (or a variation of x) for a different y - and has: redtube, 5mins etc - let alone the also viable same y but better solution.
If it's not one of their handful of monolithic and to date unbeatable successes then their presence in a market really doesn't do anything more than validate it.
Another example is Skyhook. Google started doing wifi based location while driving street view and then forced them out by threatening to cut people who used them off from the official Google apps. Not only did "Google do it" but they also leveraged their position to destroy an open market for wifi location services.
The site presents random answers to the question "What if google does it" as asked during a VC pitch.
Here's a sample answer: 'Ah yes. We get that question so often we started a weekly seminar to help answer it. It's really an eye opener. You should attend it. It's called "Venture Capital - 101". There is also a companion seminar: "What happens when your balls fall off - 101"'
In Italy, the 80% of Angels and VCs say:
"We don't know if your idea is good.
Wait until google does it, and maybe we could speak with you about your idea."
Fortunately there are very good VC and Angel (very few..) that want help the new startups and don't scared about big companies.
I was asked the "What if Google does it?" question a few times at Seedcamp by some investors - I agree with the previous comment - the question is kinda dumb, but 'seems' reasonable when used with "Google". If I were building some new social network and was asked "but what if Nokia did it?" it would suddenly seem strange... even the (more accurate) question "How would you deal with competition" is still not very useful as having competition is something that should generally be expected and not used as a way to validate or invalidate a good startup idea/product.
In addition, there is an enoumous amount of products/applications that Google couldn't do because it would conflict with the way they make money, for example if Google started a super-market chain, they would be treading on a lot of their own customers feet - and e-commerce in general.
I don't know if you should tell a VC this, but when someone asks me that question I usually laugh. Google launches about 3 products a day, then shuts them all down a year later. 99 out of 100 things they do suck and end up insignificant.
That's fine for them too, the other 1% more than recoup it, so it's a brilliant model. But I don't worry about them.
That's one of the canonical dumb investor questions. We try not to ask those. Google could blow most startups out of the water if they chose to focus on building exactly the same thing. What protects startups is that in practice big competitors can only focus on a limited number of things at once.
User indifference is a much, much greater danger for startups than competitors, big or small. So we advise startups to focus on that. What's going to kill you is the Back button, not Google.