Startup School: Reid Hoffman On The Burden Of Competition

Oftentimes when you hear a startup CEO speak about their competitors, there's a lot of talk about "validation of the market" and how there's room for multiple winners. That may be true in some cases, but competition can hamper you in ways you may not immediately expect — and winning involves more than just building a superior product. That was one of the takeaway messages from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman , who gave an excellent talk at today's Y Combinator Startup School . Hoffman says that when he's looking at startups, he often encounters entrepreneurs who think their product will be immensely useful once it gains traction. Unfortunately they oftentimes fail to put enough thinking into how they're going to get from zero users to that critical mass that turns their product into something that people actually want to use. And that can be lethal, because getting traction is no given.