Comment by raganesh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by raganesh | Hacker News Reader

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You are the founder of evolup.com. Let us say your product/service becomes a huge success. Seeing your success, existing social games developers want to do the same.

Which action from those existing developers would be best for users?

a) Do not copy your product/service. Continue doing things the old way.

b) Make something different, not because it's better, but only for being different's sake. Forces users to adapt to something new instead of using what they're already used to.

c) Embrace the innovation. Put all that's good about your product/service in their offering. Then iterate through it and improve upon it. Now users have the best of both worlds, they have the brand new innovation, in a format they're used to. And taking benefit from next iterations improved from it.

So where does your preferred option (c) leave you in this scenario? Would you whole-heartedly welcome another player "embracing your innovation"?

If that happens to me, I'll lose all motivation to innovate any further. What is the point after all?

You're asking the wrong question to the wrong person. I'm actively in contact with other local game developers trying to get them to do the same thing I'm doing (and compete with me). I've even helped others with implementation details. Which, I believe, will help grow the ecosystem for all of us, myself included. Since what I'm doing is too new (arguably ahead of its time), there's still some prejudice from both users and investors against my technology. If others were doing it as well, that would help me. Do you wanna copy me as too? Feel free to contact me, I'll help you. I can teach you how to properly implement procedural generation to reduce your costs with game artists.

At the end of the day. I trust my skills in my area. And deep inside, I'm confident that no matter how much I'm copied, whoever copies me will always be one step behind me. Because I'll keep on innovating one step further. The only reason I founded a startup is because I believe I'm better than the competition, otherwise I wouldn't have. Realistically, I believe my competitors are much more likely to become clients to my API than to actually try to implement it themselves.

That's just one of the many reasons humans will continue to create and innovate, no matter how much innovation is copied.

If by definition of "success" you mean getting rich and improving the lives of people in the process, then does it really matter if other developers will start copying from them?

"If that happens to me, I'll lose all motivation to innovate any further"

Well, tough luck kid, but a free market has no morals. In a free market the law of the fittest applies. And you should be glad there are still free markets out there, in which people like us can thrive.

First mover advantage is pretty huge. Net effects are significant.

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