In both cases, what it all comes down to is users. You’d think that a company about to buy you would do a lot of research and decide for themselves h… - Paul Graham

Prestige is an ok motivator, but curiosity is a better one. Curiosity never lies.

A startup's ascent often consists of alternating rises and flat spots. This puzzled me when I first saw it at Viaweb. But it turns out just to be what happens when you add a function representing "random ups and downs" to one that's consistently increasing.

As long as all newly founded startups prefer your product, don't worry about competitors who can convince larger customers. You'll own all future cohorts of companies, and that's more than enough. Plus in practice you'll eventually convert the old cohorts too, if you bother to.