Competition heats up the space. You can use their successes to catapult yours. If you do your homework, you should have some idea as to their business plan, revenue or fundraising stage, so plan around those so you can leverage their announcements to drive attention to you. It shows potential partners and investors that something is happening and they need to pay attention. Of course, too much heat can burn your industry out. If you want to build a Groupon clone now, you already missed that train.
Read Why Competition is Good for your Startup by Rebecca Woodcock (Co-Founder, Cake Health)