Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?

Would you say that since no other program actually competes with yours - you get your pick of the best applicants - YC probably benefits the more clones there are?

Indeed, I've noticed in the niche we're in, several sites have copied the wording on our advertising sign up page. Of course, it's complemented by strong similarities to our layout and functionality, but there's something that seems more blatant about duplicating prose.

hehe, nice hack!

You can use this technique to by pass the middle people in other ways too. For example with agency job ads, it is sometimes possible to find the company from the phrasing or combinations of technologies listed along with the location of the company. So then you can apply directly to the company, rather than going through the agency.

You can put these unique terms in things like google alerts, and then you get an email each time a ycombinator clone springs up!

Many times I have seen terms and conditions on websites and other software ripped off of other ones... and sometimes they even forget to change the company names, and even the product name! Quite funny really.

Maybe copyright infringement is a better term than plagiarized though?

I'm not sure talking about the term plagiarism with regards to business or ycombinator is all that useful. Surely ycombinator drew inspiration from other things without crediting them? The three months, and $5000 figure seems eerily similar to another program run by a company that starts with G, for example.

Micro finance was around along time before ycombinator started. So were incubators that helped startups. Investing is a very old idea.

I'm not sure if plagiarism makes sense in a medium where no credits are given at all. Where if you give credit to some other companies, they might get angry at you... and maybe bring down the law on your head. In this way academia is permitted to be more honest and free with ideas.

It's always nice to have an idea, but it's really good if people copy it. Firstly it's flattering, and secondly the idea has much more potential to spread if other people take it up... growing the market for the dominant player.

Borrowing ideas and claiming them as your own is rife in business. I'm not sure business would work if they had to credit their competitors every time they advertised, or published something.

cu,

"All that fussing ended up being a pointless waste of energy."

Well said, sir.

I think Bob Cringely had something that touched companies that got funding that way.

http://www.cringely.com/2009/12/three-simple-rules-for-steal...

That's what I keep thinking reading this. Slides? They stole ... slides? Not customer lists, or research notes, or software. Just slides? Come on. Is that really what passes for evidence of "hard work" on the marketing side of things. Is a good powerpoint really going to make or break a company?

What I found most interesting (apart from that) was the last bit where he basically lays out a "mind game" they played on the competitor.

It sounds like a much better way to get ones own back compared to litigation! :)

I remember Reid Hoffman saying something about how he welcomed a "A horse to race against" for LinkedIn.

More than that: Their competitor provided a direct comparison for their product. Selling a unique product is difficult, the customer really has nothing to compare with. That comparison process, as behavioral economics teaches us, is vital to decision making.

The entrance of a lesser competitor undoubtedly benefited them greatly. Leaving that hard copy of his presentation may have been the best thing he could have possibly done for that business.

not trying to be rude at all, but there is a difference between 'steel' and 'steal', and i believe you're looking for 'steal'

We've had several people imitate our site, not just in overall functionality but to the point of copying specific phrases, design elements, the layout and so on. I agree though that they might be able to get that far, but what they're lacking is the focus that made us create what we did in the first place. Each of these sites has tried to branch out a bit (you know, steal our ideas as a starting point, and build from there) and they've totally missed the mark with each new addition.

Right on about the ethics, too. Someone who builds their business on a purloined platform can clearly not be trusted in general.

I think his point was that the stolen strategy, by itself, had no value no matter now it was followed up on. His company completely ditched the strategy over the intervening months, in fact, in favor of iteratively improved ones.

It seems that the only way the competitor could have properly followed up on the strategy was to use the same process to arrive at that initial strategy, and subsequently evolve it into something that actually worked… but that approach would have precluded them from having stolen the strategy in the first place.

Industries are small and there are lots of people who will be talking with all the competitors -- be they trophy customers, analysts, journalists, investors, whatever.

But the shortest most-sure route in this case: both companies were talking with the same trade show organizers about scheduling at the upcoming event. Grumbling to the organizer that Blank wishes he'd picked (or paid more for) earlier scheduling would be the kind of juicy detail the organizer is certain to share with the competitor, to make the competitor feel better about their scheduling.

I worked a bit on Lyris's email thing (they were one of the few people hiring Tcl people the last time I was in the area). The GUI was a bit wonky, but it was pretty good at sending lots of email fast; and they were actually very good about not using it for evil.

This confirms my belief that companies heavy on marketing are light on product. Steve's blog is all about the marketing side of the coin and I've often wondered if the products his companies produce are any good.

It saddens me a bit to learn that they are terrible.