
YC startup accused of stealing design from CBInsights - jusben1369
https://twitter.com/atestu/status/563004733519302659
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asanwal
I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but Techlist's analytics
capabilities have an uncanny resemblance to CB Insights.

In addition, 12 folks from their team have signed up for our free trial since
September including the CEO, head of product, designer, product manager and a
senior ruby developer.

Take a look at their heatmap. The color scheme to even the text underneath is
exactly the same.

Here is our heatmap which we launched 2 years ago:
[http://cbi.vc/1AsvNy3](http://cbi.vc/1AsvNy3)

Their industry graphs are also the same. Here is ours:
[http://cbi.vc/1Asw0kR](http://cbi.vc/1Asw0kR)

On the bright side, this is a bit of an ego boost, and we're flattered that
these guys liked CB Insights so much that they wanted one just like it for
themselves.

Note: I'm the CEO of CB Insights.

~~~
jusben1369
Do you think they just copied you to launch rapidly/MVP and if
successful/raise then they would have resources to go in their own design
direction?

~~~
asanwal
To be honest, I don't care :)

And copying our work was good enough to get them into YC so guess mission
accomplished. Hopefully YC doesn't condone this type of behavior.

When the CEO and 11 other employees sign up for someone else's service to copy
it, it seems originality might be in short supply.

~~~
hamburglar
It seems like people think you're commenting about this because you want them
stopped, which doesn't seem to be the case to me. You just want it
acknowledged that they did this shitty thing. I agree that it's shitty and I
assume it's not actionable and think you're right to just be right out in the
open saying "well, they stole our design and got away with it... more power to
them." I do wonder if HN leadership has any comments on this type of behavior,
because it really does look shitty coming from one of their teams.

~~~
asanwal
I didn't post the original link. Honestly, I'd love for them to be stopped but
this is the internet after all :)

I, like you, am curious if YC condones this type of copying esp since the CEO
admitted it on Twitter.

But it's shitty and our team does a lot of hard work so I do hate to see it
copied. That said, we've seen plenty of unoriginal folks do similar stuff in
the past, and they've all failed as they focus on us while we focus on
customers.

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jbob2000
You didn't come up with the idea of a heatmap. Their designs are different
enough that I wouldn't consider it stealing. You're in the same space it looks
like, of course there is going to be crossover.

~~~
th0br0
Have a look at the non-heatmap pages. They seem to be a copy of each other
down to the order of the various parameters; even the labels tend to be
identical or slightly rephrased...

~~~
jbob2000
It's still different. This is a common layout for charted data. Likewise, Ford
can't sue Mercedes for coming out with a 4 wheeled car; that's what makes the
most sense.

There's different fonts, different colors, different spacing, some less
important elements are in different places. Forget it, this is just a tweet to
stir up discussion and generate some page hits.

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brodd
They both look like Bootstrap sites to me.

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four
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2015, 10:24 a.m. My view of the point of this story: Copying
a design is efficient business. Implementing someone else's idea instead of
creating your own is lazy and lacks integrity. Profiting from someone else's
work, without attribution or mutual agreement is stealing, is unethical and
lacks integrity. Apologizing for acting wrongly is an act of integrity. So is
ceasing one's unethical behavior.

The rules are: Take responsibility for your potential and for your actions.
Don't be lazy. Don't steal. When you act wrongly, acknowledge it, stop it, fix
it.

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mlevkovsky
I would have reached out personally to the CEO, instead of publicly shaming.

~~~
akassover
Why is that better? (Not trying to pick a fight, just curious how this would
lead to a better outcome.)

~~~
calinet6
Well, look what happened. In public. Really doesn't make anyone look good.

~~~
mikecarroll
Makes CBInsights look pretty good, actually.

~~~
speby
I'll second that. It makes CB Insights look good because it now is well-known
that a slightly more unscrupulous competitor stole the otherwise brilliant
design of CB Insights because they were unable to come up with something they
could call their own (or do better than CB Insights).

It's the lazy way. The beautiful thing about it? Those who copy (blatantly)
are doomed to fail. In most cases, they will lack the understanding and
foundation of how you arrived at the designs in the first place which
certainly consisted of iteration and changes based on interactions with &
feedback from customers.

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axg
A good design team would look at a competitor's site and say, "we can do
better". A poor design team would look at a competitor's site and say, "we can
copy that".

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DanBC
Normally when you accuse people of plagiarism you present side by side
screenshots. That allows rapid comparison.

Linking to a twitter stream is suboptimal. (That's true for any reason except
directly linking to a specific comment that some person has made, but
especially true here.)

~~~
hubridnoxx
Read the blog post again- there are side-by-side screenshots

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postit
shame

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godzillabrennus
Sounds like you might be their Xerox.

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mpeg
Honestly, their site looks a lot better. Taking inspiration from your KPI
charts and flow is completely normal, everyone looks at their established
competition for inspiration.

