That Moment When...

You find out that someone has already developed your business idea…and in some ways they are doing it better.
Early this year, I had an idea for an allergen-free banana-based “ice cream.” Initial Google searches came up near nothing. I thought the market was untapped.

In the months that followed, I developed the product and gained feedback on it. I knew nothing about business so I took a food business course. Today, I was all set to start writing the business plan but I decided that I should do a trademark search. As of May 8, 2018, the name that I was set on was officially designated as registered by a business called “Hakuna Banana.” They registered “Banilla” as the name of one of their products.

I googled Hakuna Banana and then everything started to show up –their struggles with the product (they even documented the same problem with the recipe that I had but they solved it in a different way), all their flavors, the stores where they’re currently selling…

Basically, the only difference with their product and mine and is that mine is nut-free. The feeling of seeing all this was pretty crushing.

I know that first to market, isn’t always the best indicator of success, but we’re so similar that it’s shocking and a bit disheartening. At this point, I don’t know if I should continue. Should I try to sell my nut-free recipe to them?

Has anyone here ever started developing a unique business only to find that someone else beat you to it? Comment below.