No Competition? That’s Usually a Red Flag for Solopreneurs (I Learned the Hard Way)

I spent two months building FindForce. Perfect architecture. Clean code. Zero customers. Zero revenue.

The moment that broke me wasn’t the empty dashboard. It wasn’t the crickets after launch. It was staring at my payment provider page showing $0.00 in revenue—the only metric that actually mattered.

All that beautiful infrastructure? All those nights and weekends? All that SRE expertise I’d spent 8 years cultivating?

Meant nothing.

Because nobody was paying.

The “No Competition” Trap I Fell Into

I built FindForce as a business email finder Chrome extension. Simple premise: help sales teams find and verify emails with 95% accuracy.

When I started researching the market, I found giants: Hunter, Apollo, dozens of others. My first reaction? Fear.

“How can I compete with them? They have teams. They have funding. They have thousands of customers.”

So I looked for an angle. A gap. Something they weren’t doing.

I found one: flat-rate pricing. Exceptional customer support. Speed.

Here’s what I missed: Those competitors weren’t obstacles. They were validation.

Thousands of companies were already paying for email finding tools. The demand was proven. The problem was real. People had budget allocated.

My job wasn’t to invent a new category. My job was to do it better for a specific segment.

But I was too busy being proud of my “unique approach” to see it.

How My SRE Background Betrayed Me

I spent 8 years as a SRE engineer. I built internal tools for dev teams. Kubernetes clusters. CI/CD pipelines. Infrastructure automation.

Here’s the thing about internal tools: if you build them well, people use them. There’s clear communication. Defined requirements. Immediate feedback.

I had the wrong mental model.

I thought: “If I build it excellently, they will come.”

That works when your customers are coworkers in the next room. It doesn’t work when your customers are strangers on the internet who’ve never heard of you.

I was two layers removed from real end users:

  • Internal tools serve dev teams
  • Dev teams serve external customers
  • I never had to think about external customers

So I optimized for 10,000 users before I had 10. I built for scale before I had demand. I perfected the infrastructure before I validated the problem.

Classic engineer mistake.

The Reddit Post That Changed Everything

Last week, frustrated and processing the FindForce failure, I wrote a post on X:

“Unpopular opinion: if nobody’s doing your startup idea, that’s usually a red flag, not an opportunity.”

Got some traction. Felt bold. Tried it on Reddit.

160+ upvotes. 60+ comments. 48,000+ views.

The most viral moment of my 30 years on this planet.

Here’s what I argued:

No competition often means:

  • No demand exists
  • Customer acquisition costs are too high
  • Market education burden is too heavy for small teams
  • Regulatory barriers make it unviable

The sweet spot isn’t an empty market. It’s a crowded market with broken execution.

The responses were fascinating. Some agreed violently. Others called me out on exceptions: Airbnb, Uber, blue ocean strategies.

They were both right.

The Nuance Nobody Talks About (Solopreneur Reality)

Here’s what I should have said in that Reddit post:

For VC-backed teams with deep pockets, blue ocean strategies can work.

You can afford:

  • A GTM team to educate the market
  • Designers and engineers to iterate quickly
  • Geographic advantages (SF networking, warm intros)
  • Multiple attempts before running out of runway

For solopreneurs, immigrants, new parents with limited time and zero network? Different game entirely.

I’m all three. Iranian immigrant. New father. Building from home. No alumni network. No conference circuit. No warm intros.

I have to do cold DM and cold email outreach for every. single. customer conversation.

Last week I sent 40 cold LinkedIn messages to my ICP. Got 9 responses. Booked 1 customer discovery call.

That’s the reality. Not 100 interviews. Not warm intros through YC. Not a network from Stanford or MIT.

Just me, a spreadsheet, and a lot of rejection.

When “No Competition” Might Actually Work

I’m not saying blue ocean strategies never work for solopreneurs. But you need specific conditions:

✅ You MIGHT pursue a no-competition idea if:

1. You have deep domain expertise

  • You’re not flying blind
  • You understand the problem intimately
  • You’ve lived it for years

2. You’ve done 10+ customer interviews

  • They’re actively complaining about the pain
  • They’re already trying to solve it (badly)
  • They have budget allocated

3. The market shift just happened

  • New regulation created the need
  • New technology made it possible
  • Timing is everything

4. You have an existing audience

  • You’re not starting from zero
  • You have distribution built-in
  • Think: YouTuber launching a SaaS

5. It’s a niche too small for VCs, too big to ignore

  • Not venture-scale
  • But sustainable for one person
  • Examples: specific industry tools

❌ Don’t pursue no-competition ideas if:

  • You’re learning the industry as you build
  • You have no audience or network
  • You need quick revenue to survive
  • The market education would take years
  • You’re a solo technical founder with zero sales experience (hi, that was me)

What I’m Doing Differently Now (Build in Public)

I’m done building in a vacuum. Here’s my new playbook:

1. Distribution First, Product Second

I just launched awesome-directories.com — a curated directory aggregator for indie hackers. 300+ directories, open source, Apache-2 license, completely free.

This is the opposite of FindForce:

  • FindForce: Built product → tried to find users
  • awesome-directories: Build for community → recognition → audience → monetize later (maybe even not!)

Why? Because people listen to you when you give first.

I’m not charging. No paywall. No “freemium” trap. Just pure value.

If people subscribe to my newsletter or buy me a coffee, great. If not, I’m still building trust and recognition.

2. Ruthless Customer Discovery

Before I write a single line of code for my next SaaS, I’m doing:

  • 200 cold LinkedIn DMs (sent 40 last week)
  • Aiming for 6+ booked customer discovery calls
  • Asking about their last painful experience with the problem
  • Checking if they’re already paying for a solution
  • Understanding why they’re not satisfied

I’m doing A/B testing on my outreach messages. Data-driven iteration. Engineer’s approach to sales.

Does it hurt when 31 out of 40 people ignore me? Yes.

Do I keep going? Also yes.

Resilience and persistence are founder prerequisites.

3. Value-First, Always

Every piece of content. Every tool. Every interaction.

Give, give, give. Ask little.

That’s how you build an audience as an unknown immigrant founder with no network.

The Framework: Should You Pursue Your “No Competition” Idea?

Here’s my decision tree for solopreneurs:

Step 1: Count the Competitors

  • 0-1 competitors: 🚩 High risk. Proceed with extreme caution.
  • 2-10 competitors: ✅ Good. Demand is validated.
  • 10+ competitors: ⚠️ Can you differentiate? Do you have unfair advantage?

Step 2: Talk to Customers FIRST

  • Before writing code: 10+ customer interviews minimum
  • Ask: “Tell me about the last time you had this problem”
  • Ask: “What are you currently using to solve it?”
  • Ask: “What do you hate about current solutions?”
  • Red flag: If they’re not actively searching for solutions, problem isn’t big enough

Step 3: Check Your Resources

  • Time: Can you afford 6-12 months of market education?
  • Money: Can you survive without revenue during that period?
  • Network: Can you reach your ICP without paid ads?
  • Expertise: Do you understand this domain deeply?

If you answered “no” to 2+ questions, choose a validated market.

Step 4: Look for These Green Flags

  • ✅ Competitors exist but execution is broken
  • ✅ Customers complaining publicly about current solutions
  • ✅ You have an unfair advantage (expertise, audience, speed)
  • ✅ Clear, specific niche you can dominate
  • ✅ People are actively searching for solutions (Google/Reddit evidence)

Step 5: Make the Call

  • Blue ocean: Only if you have resources, network, or deep expertise
  • Validated market: Default choice for bootstrapped solopreneurs
  • Crowded market: Your best bet—demand is proven, execution is improvable

The Honest Truth: I’m Still Figuring This Out

I haven’t cracked the code. I’m not writing this from a yacht.

I’m writing this from my home office, with a 4-month-old son in the next room, trying to build something that matters while doing cold outreach to strangers.

But here’s what I know for sure:

  1. Competition validates demand. I was scared of Hunter and Apollo. I should have been grateful they existed.

  2. Technical excellence means nothing without customers. My clean code didn’t matter. My 95% accuracy didn’t matter. Nothing mattered until someone paid.

  3. Distribution > Product. Always. The best product that nobody knows about is worthless.

  4. Solopreneurs can’t afford to educate markets. Leave blue oceans to funded teams. You need validated demand.

  5. Give first, ask later. Build trust through value. awesome-directories is my bet on this strategy.

What Happens Next

I’m continuing the 200 cold DM experiment. I’ll share the results—success or failure.

I’m building awesome-directories in public, documenting everything.

I’m doing customer discovery the right way this time. Every conversation. Every pattern. Every insight.

And I’m accepting that progress beats perfection every single time.

Will it work? I don’t know.

But I’m showing up. I’m pushing through. I’m learning.

That’s the only way forward.

Key Takeaways for Solopreneurs

If you only remember three things from this post:

1. Competition = Validation If nobody’s doing it, ask “why” before assuming you found a gap. Most gaps exist because there’s no demand or prohibitive barriers.

2. Talk to Customers Before Building 10+ interviews minimum. Ask about their past behavior, not hypothetical future. “Would you use this?” is a worthless question.

3. Distribution First Build audience through free value (tools, content, templates). Trust compounds. Then sell to people who already know and like you.

Stay Connected

I’m documenting this entire journey in public. Every lesson, every mistake, every breakthrough.

Pick your platform:

No fluff. No overnight success stories. Just raw documentation from the trenches.

What’s your take? Am I wrong about the “no competition” trap? Have you succeeded in a blue ocean as a solopreneur? Reply and let me know—I read every message.