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Big guys are turning your startup into a dropdown menu

★★ signal-medium   r/entrepreneur  ·  ↑ 154  ·  💬 133  ·  2026-02-27  ·  kw: Sponsored Products tool  ·  open on reddit ↗
your rating:
Tool
Google, Notion
Issue
Startups building standalone software tools are being commoditized when large platforms integrate their entire product as a single dropdown menu feature, eliminating differentiation and pricing power.
Cost
unstated
Recommendation
none
extracted with
anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

Nobody goes to a salt shop. You just grab salt at the grocery store. It’s there on the shelf next to everything else. Costs nothing. You don’t even think about it. That’s what’s happening to software right now. Some guy spends two years building a tool. Then Google or Notion adds his whole product as one button inside their app. One click in a little menu. Right there next to Copy and Delete. He wasn’t running a business. He was selling salt. And now the grocery store gives it away free. This is happening every week. Founders waking up to find out they were never the store. They were just one item on someone else’s shelf.

Top comments (7)

[score=1] AutoModerator
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[score=65] monkey6
My startup is _pepper_
[score=206] Pro_Automation__
Build a real business, not just a feature. Very insightful.
[score=175] [deleted]
[removed]
[score=13] dannyoc3an
Why is this posted as a best practice? Should be “useless observations“. There isn’t even a “practice” in the post lol
[score=40] takeyoufergranite
Hey boss, check your assumptions. I do go to the salt store. You will find a specialty salt store in every major city in America. Finishing salts, cooking salts, pink salts, black salts, seasoning salts. Your entire opening statement is incorrect.
[score=18] [deleted]
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