Three of My Customers Have Cloned My Product | Hacker News Reader

Three of My Customers Have Cloned My Product

myles.io

24 pointsmkrecny10 comments

This seems like a post written by someone who values ideas much more highly than execution. Ultimately if you're actually providing value beyond whatever code you wrote does and executing at a high level you should not be scared of the competition at all.

Ideas do not create value for a customer, execution does. Perhaps it all relates back to the fallacy of passive income and the build it, release it and sit on a beach philosophy that just isn't reality in any competitive business environment.

OP here. Great comment, thank you. I'm definitely a proponent of execution > ideas. I hope I made that clear in the post by saying:

"I don't mind that their app does exactly the same thing as mine. Or that I could lose business over it. It's that they've slavishly copied the minor details that I'm so proud of."

The minor details I think are a result of execution, not the ideation. However I think you'd disagree - would love to hear more on 'executing at a high level'.

This is why God invented EULAs, into which you have a well paid lawyer insert careful verbiage saying that by using this service you agree not to make a clone of it or we'll sue your ass, and then proceed to sue their asses. I'm betting that most of the clones would shut down rather than pay for ongoing court fees of something that'll be a pretty clear copyright violation (all your UI stuff is copywritten).

I feel dumb for not knowing this, but I also know that I wouldn't pursue suing the cloners. Would prefer to learn a little from them, then out-compete.

There are a bunch of comments here that say something along the lines of "F the clones, outperform them. Execution beats ideas, etc." While you should absolutely focus on creating the best product and best service, you are doing your business a disservice by not pursuing these routes and giving your business the best chance to succeed. Don't be shy about using the legal system - it's there for many reasons, including to protect rights and provide a just playing field for everyone.

One of my friends loves to throw the pizza restaurant analogy out all of the time. There are many pizza restaurants and they all have some different level of success. Each pizza place offers something just a little different than the others. Ultimately, the winners will be the ones that offer a better overall service. You already have "out-compete" in your mind set so you should be fine.

I like your analogy, I usually use a slightly different pizza restaurant analogy. In my town there are all sorts of places to get pizza:

- 1: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's

- 2: Little Cesars

- 3: Mom & Pop shops selling ~$5 pizzas

All three types offer pizza (not identical, but still) and seem to coexist just fine but their strategies are pretty different: 1 & 2 spend millions on national campaigns, 1 & 3 offer delivery, 2 & 3 have really cheap pizzas, etc.

I think the takeaway is that product alone isn't enough, you also need a solid strategy to take a place in the market.

Well, I suppose that is the danger in going with an idea that is simple to execute and that doesn't have some kind of networking effect.

Do you want the fresh apple or the rotten apple? They're both apples. Make yours the fresh apple.

Isn't it reasonably easy to copy let's say Trello? Why it doesn't happen?

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