I’m taking a few products to market right now, and the single most common response when I describe one of them is some version of “but X already does that.” Reddit is the worst for it, but I get it in person too.

I know it shouldn’t stop anyone. Taken seriously, it’s the argument for a world with only Ford cars and Coca-Cola. No market worth entering is a blue ocean.

My problem is what it does to the conversation. I’ve spent months on positioning, they’ve had five minutes of intro, and the first thing I get is a weakness I’m already aware of.

I know it's not a blue ocean market. I feel the irritation rising, I go defensive, and the conversation is dead. That’s on me, and I’d like to stop doing it. So I’m thinking the fix is in the pitch itself: name the incumbent before they do, say what’s wrong with it, and lead with my angle (a, b, c) instead of the category. Something like “people use X for this and hate Y, we remove Y.”

But I’m honestly not sure that’s the whole story.…