Startups and Markets

If there are no competitors at all, it could mean one of the two things - either there is no market, or that a market hasn't been created yet; the latter meaning that one might have arrived too early.

If there are many players competing in a space and nobody is making money or able to build a sustainable model, it is a market problem.

If there are many players competing in a space and there are a few of them making money, and it's just you who isn't making money, then its an execution problem.

Here is the kicker : for a startup to be considered a success, it has to succeed in a market where many are failing. That's when the venture hits a jackpot, else it does normal returns (which often doesn't justify venture capital).

Startups are hard. That's why they are called moonshots.