Recently, Webtoon went public (Nasdaq: WBTN). I want to sincerely congratulate them on their successful IPO.
My previous company was a competitor to Webtoon. They were much bigger than us, but we packed a punch, especially in content monetization and building a creator community. They had good financial backing from their parent company, while we were an independent startup that raised less than $15M in lifetime funding.
Anyway, the interesting story here is that, in hindsight, a pretty significant part of our success came from Webtoon.
- Strategy: They constantly pushed us to think about differentiation and focus.
- Users: They aggressively tried to expand their user base, and some of their users also downloaded our app to consume different content, helping us gain new users.
- Acquisition: They acquired Wattpad, which indirectly influenced Kakao’s decision to acquire our company, as Kakao wanted to directly compete against Webtoon in the US market.
Companies rarely go down because of their competitors; they usually falter due to their own problems. Competitors might even help you grow, especially in a new market where it’s not winner-takes-all.
So, focus on your users and product more than anything, instead of being obsessed with your competitor’s every small move.