In this land rush you offer would-be competitors a turnkey solution to compete with you. So hypothetically let's say you were going to get into Automotive or Cooking Q&A and Car & Driver (or Cook's Illustrated) sees you get a little bit of traction and they sign up for StackExchange and heavily promote it faster and probably more effectively than you can since they have a dedicated core audience. This doesn't worry you? Or are you going to avoid verticals you can't quickly get a critical mass in?
If this is intentional, that's an interesting idea. Once the concept is out there, it is a lot easier for someone to role their own competition. If there is going to be competition anyway, have some control and/or a stake in success.
If a site gets to the point where it is a substantial business, they may well want to partner with Stackoverflow more closely anyway to get features, advice, access to whatever revenue generating plan they come up with.
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In this land rush you offer would-be competitors a turnkey solution to compete with you. So hypothetically let's say you were going to get into Automotive or Cooking Q&A and Car & Driver (or Cook's Illustrated) sees you get a little bit of traction and they sign up for StackExchange and heavily promote it faster and probably more effectively than you can since they have a dedicated core audience. This doesn't worry you? Or are you going to avoid verticals you can't quickly get a critical mass in?
Seems like a nice position to be in, actually.
Either you get a successful site in that vertical, or somebody else pays you $50k/year for the right to have it instead.
If this is intentional, that's an interesting idea. Once the concept is out there, it is a lot easier for someone to role their own competition. If there is going to be competition anyway, have some control and/or a stake in success.
If a site gets to the point where it is a substantial business, they may well want to partner with Stackoverflow more closely anyway to get features, advice, access to whatever revenue generating plan they come up with.