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Why we picked it The honest counter to the comforting story that big competitors prove your market. Boulanger argues competition is at best a prerequisite for a large market, not proof of one, and hands you concrete litmus tests to check whether demand is real before you build. For a crowded market, that is the useful move: stop pointing at rivals and go test whether customers have a budgeted, painful problem you can win.
Competition is not market validation
From Antoine Boulanger by Antoine Boulanger ~10 min read
- Existing competitors show a category exists, but that is not the same as proof that real, willing demand is there for you
- Run practical tests: is it cheap for anyone to copy, is the space funded on hype or genuine user pain, does it solve a budgeted problem
- Validate against actual user pain points rather than treating the number of rivals as a green light