I'm currently stuck in a strategic loop:
1. The Clone Trap: If I just build another "Chat + Tools" interface, I have no moat. Minor UI tweaks won't save a startup against a category leader.
2. The Hammer Trap: On the other hand, trying to differentiate often feels like "holding a hammer looking for a nail." I'm terrified of building rigid workflows or "innovative" features that users didn't actually ask for, just to look different.
The Question:
For a General Agent, does differentiation strictly have to come from narrowing the domain (niche vertical)?
Or is there a real opportunity to innovate on the interaction layer (beyond the chat box) without arbitrarily constraining the user?
leo_e•28m ago
Right now, Manus and others are great at the 'Happy Path'. But when a 3-hour multi-step task hits a 503 error on step 47, does the agent gracefully recover, retry with backoff, or ask for specific human intervention? Or does it just hallucinate a success?
If you are building a B2C agent, differentiation comes from trust. If I can trust your agent to book a flight and actually verify the confirmation email (and handle the payment failure) without me babysitting it, that's the win.
Build an agent that handles failure like a distributed system (idempotency, checkpoints, dead letter queues), not like a chatbot.