Often times, my friends ask me the question: "How is this product different from
X?" Previously, I would actually try to justify the difference. However, now I try to
minimize this way of thinking. The reason this question doesn't matter as much
is that it's focusing more on competitors and less on users.
I think when people ask for differentiation, what they really want to ask is: "How
can your product better serve users?" And conversely, I think even if a product
is similar to an existing product, it's still fine as long as it serves the users.
The real challenge of having the exact same product is that a lot of times, it's
hard to match the value of the original product by copying it. For example, in the
cases of social network apps, the network effect makes the original product with
larger user base better, and the network effect is very hard to copy.