In the last 2 startups I've been knee deep with, I learned a valuable lesson about ecosystems. That being, spend time understanding the motivations of those who've been around a lot longer than you. There are clues that can tell you the good, bad, and the ugly about your market if you look across the entire ecosystem.
For example, some larger players may just be "testing" their product in your market waiting for their primary market to be ready for it. Short and sweet - no real commitment to the market you're in.
Or the ugliest is, and we all know this one, a company who's just sniffing for ideas from you and teases you with the notion of licensing technology.
Physically mapping out the different suppliers in the ecosystem and the motives of the players can tell you a lot about where to place your bets.
There's a lot more here young companies can benefit from, so I'm going to read and think more about ecosystems - for now, there's an article in Fast Company's August issue "In Praise of Ecosystems", by John Sviokla, that talks about another ecosystem issue - building proprietary architectures. He uses the IPOD as an example of a dangerous strategy.
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