If your needs are known, they are also known to competitors.
I know that Elon Musk is not a popular figure nowadays, but he very correctly stated that competition is for losers, and the real innovators build things that competitors are just unable to copy for a long time, let alone exceed. SpaceX did that. Google, arguably, did that, too, both with their search and their (piecemeal acquired) ad network. Apple did that with iTunes.
Strive to explore the unknown when you can, it may contain yet-unknown lucrative markets.
(There is, of course, an opposite play, the IBM PC play, when you create a market explosion by making a thing open, and enjoy a segment of it, which is larger than the whole market would be if you kept it closed.)
Part of what makes an industry is a shared problem statement. This statement would be based on needs and constraints. I don't believe that the needs are a secret sauce for a company. The approach at solving the shared needs is the secret sauce.
I think a better approach is to competition is that it should be irrelevant. One should be developing a solution that solves the problem statement.
I know that Elon Musk is not a popular figure nowadays, but he very correctly stated that competition is for losers, and the real innovators build things that competitors are just unable to copy for a long time, let alone exceed. SpaceX did that. Google, arguably, did that, too, both with their search and their (piecemeal acquired) ad network. Apple did that with iTunes.
Strive to explore the unknown when you can, it may contain yet-unknown lucrative markets.
(There is, of course, an opposite play, the IBM PC play, when you create a market explosion by making a thing open, and enjoy a segment of it, which is larger than the whole market would be if you kept it closed.)