
Ask HN: What to do when a Chinese startup clones your website? - bflesch
Dear HN,
I&#x27;m CEO of a Germany-based eSports startup and we have a problem.<p>Today we were approached by a Chinese user of our website who told us that a China-based startup has launched a direct clone of our website aimed at the Chinese market.<p>Our website https:&#x2F;&#x2F;strivewire.com is a host of for-money eSports tournaments in the Hearthstone vertical, but we are working on expanding to other games as well.<p>The website in question is a very obvious clone of ours and has both .com and .cn domains: - www.haogegebisai.com - www.chosengamer.com<p>Basically they copied all the design and even our logo down to the actual URLs.<p>I&#x27;ve added their CEO on WeChat and inquired about this, and he said they are big fans of our startup. But he also mentioned that they already have investors. Their website launched two days ago and already has a bunch of activity.<p>We&#x27;ve talked about this internally and hope to be able to gain this startup as a Chinese subsidiary, but we are still unsure if this will actually work out.<p>From a legal standpoint we are very unsure how much you can actually do in such a case. Should we just wait it out? Our should we aim to litigate to put pressure on their investors? I have some experience in international litigation in cybercrime cases, but from a practical perspective it is very likely to bind a lot of resources and focus.<p>Another huge problem for us is that we are in talks with a very large Chinese IT company (triple-digit $Bn market cap), and if there is a clone growing in their backyard they might pass on us.<p>It&#x27;d be great if people with more experience in these things could give us some advice.<p>Thanks, Benjamin<p>TL;DR: Chinese startup is cloning our business, unsure what to do
======
trevelyan
Where to start? You won't win putting legal pressure on any Chinese startup
since that is an empty threat, but you also won't win talking to any big
Chinese IT company. The startup won't care about the threat of legal action
and the big company will simply clone your product once you convince them the
market has potential.

If your goal is making money and/or securing a partnership you have to put
yourself into a position of strength. The best way to do this is to launch an
actual Chinese competitor yourself. This should cost no more than 10k USD per
month assuming you can leverage your existing code, which makes it much
cheaper than going the legal route. Feel free to contact me (contact info in
profile) if you need help or introductions to people who can actually make
this a reality for you in a week or two. I'm in Beijing and have done three
startups in China and can put you in touch with people here who can actually
help you.

A live product from you poses an existential threat to your competitors and
keeps the big IT company from delaying in perpetuity (the typical modus
operandi for big players here is to have middle management rush to agreement
on the general principles of possible cooperation and then stalling and never
doing anything more substantial -- the delay means they aren't sure if it is
worth their while to clone you yet). But the threat of your getting actual
traction matters because growth puts a deadline on your willingness to accept
other people stalling, and your presence starts imposing actual costs on the
startup. Those guys will need to change their branding at a minimum since they
can't build an independent brand with you in the market, and once they know
you will play hardball you will find them a lot more amenable to compromise if
you want to go that route. With that said, if your market reception is good
you may not even want to continue talking with them, since most Chinese
startups are really inefficient and you can probably blow them out of the
market anyway.

~~~
bflesch
Thank you very much. Your advice sounds on point, and it is maybe even a bit
too realistic to really reduce our stress levels.

We're really not sure what to expect from the Chinese market, and if our
resources aren't better spent on US / EU only. We'd be interested to explore
that option, though. Maybe there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. I will contact
you next week if it is fine with you.

We believe for-money eSports tournaments will be the next online poker craze
allover the world, because it addresses the basic instincs of competition of a
generation of (mostly male) gamers that grow older and have more disposable
income.

Thanks for offering your expertise.

~~~
pierre-renaux
I've been in China from 2004-2014 and built a startup there that was sold to
one of their internet giant.

I can confirm that the parent is on point. Imo, your best bet - if you dont
want to give up the Chinese market - would be to raise from a reputable
Chinese investor. Without that you wont have much pull with any partner you
find in China and they will happily stall and then copy your stuff. That is
completly "fair game" to them and most wont even comprehend what your trying
to tell them - a bit like the guy telling you that he admires/like what you've
done after you asked him why they copied your stuff as-is...

If you want to chat feel free to contact me, email in profile.

------
kev6168
There are a few places where you can lodge strong protest and send legal
notice:

State Intellectual Property Office of China
[http://english.sipo.gov.cn/lxfs/](http://english.sipo.gov.cn/lxfs/)

China Internet Network Information Center
[http://www1.cnnic.cn/PublicS/hyzl/](http://www1.cnnic.cn/PublicS/hyzl/)

You can send them emails or even better call them. They all should have people
who can communicate in English effectively. Getting in contact with them will
help you put pressure on the offender, and also gather info for next move.

The best move is to hire someone from China to do some leg work for you, if
that's necessary. No need for lawyers at first. There are many Chinese
freelancers active in various international elance type sites. Also,
[http://www.witmart.com/](http://www.witmart.com/) is reputable, operating
from China.

China, at least the central government, is trying hard to implement tougher
policies on protecting intellectual properties. The problems are mostly at the
local level. If you know how to get the offenders' attention with effective
threats on legal action, they are actually _very_ afraid of being caught. The
cut-throat business competitions in China force them to avoid legal trouble
and damage to their company's reputations, if they are legit startup trying to
make it big, not some college students just playing around (in this case then
you don't need to worry too much anyway).

Also wholesale copying western ideas is a widespread popular practice, I feel
you are fighting the wrong battle. There is no way you can prevent somebody
else (meaning hundreds if the idea is really good) in China doing the same
cloning shit. Also conquering the China market needs many many other types of
fighting, and preventing cloning is the least you need to worry about.

~~~
bflesch
Thanks your advice, kev6168! I will try to get in touch with those two
authorities on Monday and maybe they can clear up the leverage we have.

If you look at our website you see that we're using cheap bootstrap, so they
are not really cloning our design asset, but the whole product / UX. They add
some value for users by providing Chinese translations.

They told us they already have investors, and it seems at least two people are
working on this. Unfortunately I was unable to find any info about company
registration or the actual investor.

I sincerely hope that we can somehow work with them so we don't have to waste
resources in fighting / worrying.

~~~
kev6168
oh lots of 'fightings' are needed. Those fightings are very strange and
pointless work to a westerner, but actually are the necessary and normal
things to do in the Chinese business environment, things like 1. thorough
research on whether it's in your best interests to operate in china now,
_really important_, 2. much _much_ more carefully than you would do in Europe
to examine your potential partners' credentials and validity of their claims,
3. establish connections with government officials (no, you don't need to go
crazy on bribe or shady stuff, just good relationship and name recognition),
4, find capable and trusty locals to work together.

The key for anyone to make it in China is to understand that although China is
utterly different from the west, it is _NOT_ a random and chaos place. It has
its own well-oiled system running for the most time successfully for
millenniums! It's scary to foreigners because it's so different so people tend
to avoid it altogether. But in fact every issue has a well established way to
be dealt with, obvious to locals but not obvious to a foreigner. So getting
there and doing the right moves, you might emerge victorious.

Also in comparison to other industries, internet-related intellectual property
protection is much easier to enforce by the Chinese central and local
government, because they can order ISPs and Cloud service providers to pull
plugs on the perpetrators web sites with enough poking from you or your
liaison in China. Power to the censors and GFW related technologies! :) So be
confident you will find ways to solve the problem. Good luck with your
venture.

------
6stringmerc
> _Another huge problem for us is that we are in talks with a very large
> Chinese IT company (triple-digit $Bn market cap), and if there is a clone
> growing in their backyard they might pass on us._

If what I've read about doing business in China holds a sliver of truth - both
from stories linked here and elsewhere - it's not a _chance_ they will pass on
you but almost a _given_ they will pass on you. I'm almost so suspicious of
business practices in that market that I'd be willing to wager a small sum
that maybe somebody in the very large Chinese IT company actually prompted
another entity to get the clone up and running, or at least is aware of the
situation.

If there's a way to take your idea and leave you nothing, I get the feeling
that is exactly the path that will be taken. Unfortunately I can't help with
direct advice to address, but I do wish you the best in your efforts to stamp
out that terribly dishonest approach.

~~~
bflesch
Thanks for your assessment. I haven't thought about it from that angle. That's
a bit upsetting as I am sure they have access to much larger resources than we
do.

The thing is that I don't know who the investor behind this business is. If I
knew it is a smallish business angel then there would be no reason to worry.
On the other hand if they are in Chinese YC we have a problem :|

~~~
studentrob
If you can find a way to innovate in a manner that isn't easily copyable I
think you can win. Sorry if that isn't much help. The Chinese are experts at
copying but it doesn't work for everything at any single point in time.

------
jason_slack
I had this happen to a client. The Chinese company was literally hot-linking
to everything. I used a site sucker to grab the site they had put up to tell
this.

So we changed the domain name, moved the site.

We then replaced the assets under the domain name they were using with assets
that might offend folks when looked at.

Not everyone can change the domain though.

~~~
patio11
You'd be amazed what an Nginx configuration serving a conditional message in
favor of freedom of expression and self-determination for Taiwan can
accomplish. Not much for international politics, but it will resolving the
hotlinking problem very, very quickly.

~~~
hawkice
I'm surprised this didn't come up with the github script tag DDOS. I know they
changed content to try to encourage them to stop, but it was an inconvenience
to users, like alert() calls, so of course it was no where near as effective
as this.

~~~
rmc
> _I 'm surprised this didn't come up with the github script tag DDOS._

The main Chinese-Github DDOS was the Chinese Goverment/Great Firewall of China
was it intercepting Chinese websites for non-chinese IPs, and inserting a
script that DDOSed Github. Chinese users weren't relevant here.

~~~
bflesch
That's a good point. I just want to be clear that we are not looking for ways
to weaponize their or even our own website :)

Just trying to get some input on a tricky situation. Should we expand to China
earlier than planned? Should we ignore it? etc pp

------
hardcandy
The only thing the Chinese respect is constant execution. You have to out
execute them every day and constantly beat them in the market, in order to
achieve a position of strength from which you can structure the deals you
want. Despite what some other users have posted here, there's almost 0 respect
for trademark or copyright law especially if you're a foreign company.

------
dikaiosune
Out of curiosity, what makes "What to do when a Chinese startup clones your
website?" different from "What to do when another startup clones your
website?" Is it just a matter of legal jurisdiction? Or is there some other
element here that makes it more nefarious?

~~~
jzwinck
When a Chinese group does it, you can't sue them. You can't compel their ISP
to block them. You can't file a patent or trademark or any other protection
for your prior art where it matters. And in many cases, you can't even talk to
them, because unlike many programmers from non-English speaking countries,
they may really not know English, and/or there may be no intersection in the
communication services that you and they are using.

There aren't a lot of other countries that share all those difficult aspects
yet still have plenty of capable programmers.

~~~
lucaspiller
It's not China specific though, surely it would be the same in pretty much any
non-English speaking country? What happens if a company in
Romania/Bulgaria/Nigeria/Chile clones your US startup?

Even in terms of legal jurisdictions if a company in Australia clones it, and
hosts and develops everything in Australia, you may need to hire an Australian
legal team to fight it.

~~~
DrJokepu
Not sure about Nigeria but you can absolutely seek legal recourse in Romania,
Bulgaria or Chile with the aid of a local, English-speaking lawyer. All of
these countries have well developed legal systems.

~~~
tlogan
Ok - great. A competitor can open and register their company in Panama. Then
what?

~~~
DrJokepu
If they conduct business in the United States, it may be possible to seek
legal recourse in the United States.

------
contingencies
I live in China, I've been here 15 years. My wife is an IP lawyer. I'm also
German by third citizenship. My advice is: forget China, work on other
markets, totally ignore the situation.

Honestly, the chances you are going to get decent cash from e-sports here are
1 in a million. Every _wangba_ (internet cafe) has pirated titles. Few pay for
games. Lots of servers are openly running hacked. New TVs here come with built
in pirated content Netflix clones. Nobody cares.

Take it from me, there just isn't have a legal or commercial environment here
that is likely to favor your business model.

------
Mimu
Try to figure out how they do it, and feed them with porn and anti chinese
propaganda. If they do it manually then pray for them because they have a
shitty life.

~~~
cmdrfred
Write some markov chains that spew out text about Tiananmen square. Actually
don't, they might be ripping you off but that might get them killed.

~~~
kweks
I'm trying to work out why retaliation with porn / tragedy propaganda is even
vaguely acceptable.

HN would typically be aghast if you served NSFW content potentially to
unexpecting audiences (..think of the children!), or even with the real life
analog of becoming vigilante on someone who wronged you.

There seems to be the underlying notion that: because it's China, any riposte
is acceptable. Again, HN would typically be aghast if you drew sweeping
stereotypes over 1B+ people.

There are multiple solutions.

If someone is hotlinking your content, block their requests.

Lodge DMCA requests to remove their SE listing.

If you have a product and a brand that is being copied, Chinese customs are
very pro-active on brand defense. Register your brand / trademark:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/danharris/2015/10/12/how-to-
prot...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/danharris/2015/10/12/how-to-protect-
against-counterfeiting-register-your-china-trademark-with-china-
customs/#51489d2310bf)

Innovate and update more often. Copying, legal or otherwise happens all the
time, in all jurisdictions. Ratinally weigh up the real damage their site is
causing, and act accordingly.

~~~
whatnotests
Because in the absence of law and order, when the social contract is broken we
as humans feel the need for justice.

If justice could be served using legal channels, then it would. As it is in
the Free World. Given the parent's examples of why legal channels are
unavailable, vigilantism is the automatic next best thing.

Legal channels often serve as the path of least resistance compared to
vigilante acts in other cases. Their ineffectiveness in cases like this push
people to do what they feel they must.

~~~
striking
That and it's really funny. You're ripping me off? Surprise! Your site's made
of porn now! It's enjoyable in a somewhat twisted way, a la schadenfreude.

I don't know if I would call legal channels "ineffective" and I'm not
anarchist enough to say that you "must" be a vigilante when they don't work.
But yeah, sometimes it's really enjoyable to get back at people.

There's nothing wrong with being morally wrong. (Just as long as you're not
hurting anyone, in my opinion.)

~~~
bflesch
They're not hotlinking us, so these approaches wouldn't work in our case.

Furthermore I think (e)Sports is a rather apolitical thing so I wouldn't like
to find myself on some Chinese blacklist, as we definitely want to expand in
the asian markets.

~~~
studentrob
> we definitely want to expand in the asian markets.

Is China required or could you settle with Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, etc?

You might want to investigate the experiences of other businesses who have
tried to sell within China. China's judicial system is worse than ours.

I wouldn't pump much time or money into tip toeing around their rules.
Ultimately they can just block and clone you. Consider that China's blocking
of FB, Twitter, and Google allow them to create their own copies of these
sites that create jobs and earn money within China. China likes to say that
these sites don't play by the rules, but it seems when you operate in China
the goalposts are always moving. Personally I think that's because any
government that is not by the people is unstable. That's up to them to decide,
however.

~~~
bflesch
South Korea is huge for eSports so definitely also a huge target for us. But I
am not sure that you can play a role in China from outside.

The current interest in China (and our FOMO) is mainly driven by potential
investors or acquirers. We've nearly finished our app with which we hope to
bring eSports for-money tournaments to a whole new level.

In our type of business everyone is moving goalposts all the time, we have had
interesting experiences with regulators in EU and US so I am unsure if Chinese
bureaucracy can really top this.

Obviously, when structuring international business in that region Hong Kong or
Singapore are prime locations, but I don't think the big vision can be
implemented without having native speakers both in CN and SK.

As a German company, a lot of our "good old manufacturing" businesses have
written case study over case study about expansion to China, with very mixed
results. But I feel we're kind of forced into that decision right now, because
growth can be explosive.

------
greenspot
Happened to me. Frustrating experience but afterwards you learned very well
that you need to create a product and/or business model with a strong lock-in,
not just a nice site or app.

~~~
awinter-py
yes -- 'what stops a third party from duplicating your model' is a good
question to ask before starting a company.

~~~
bflesch
People will put money into their accounts on our site and have an online
balance, that is a huge factor in stickyness imo (same as with online poker).

We haven't tested their backend logic which is a huge part of our competitive
advantage to other platforms, and mainly assessed the thread by visually
comparing the sites.

------
mahyarm
TBH it's very lazy of them to just copy your fairly standard bootstrap design
and generic lighting bolt logo. If they just used some other similar template
and chose some other logo but otherwise had the same business, they would be
your chinese competitor vs. your chinese clone.

Maybe the most efficient measure you can do with your scarce startup resources
is to treat them as a competitor and enter the chinese market earlier if it's
practical. If someone makes their own VRBO or AirBNB website for china and
choose to make their own logo and standard web design, are they an AirBNB
clone or competitor?

~~~
bflesch
You're the first to point out our shitty design :) That was one of the things
that shocked me most: Why on earth would they pick our default bootstrap
template if there are so many better ones? They even cloned the background
gradients of the current match boxes.

------
zhte415
The ICP license they're using in non-commercial. 京ICP备16007973号-3

Note the 备 which means non-commercial.

Pretty equivalent to a blog, or basic homepage.

Were they to try to commercialise what they/you plan to do, they'd need to
apply for an ICP license via a different route, for online gaming (and as you
alluded to, potentially betting). That would be a route paved in hell for any
small startup.

Dismiss this as a non-threat, both as a commercially viable startup and/or as
a ruse of the large company you're currently talking to. Don't waste your time
with it.

------
chvid
What design did they copy? As far as I can see you are both just using Twitter
Bootstrap? The logo - is that the lightning icon?

What is the background functionality? Are you competing in the same market?

If you are worried about looking similar to other sites then spend some time
on a more distinctive design than Bootstrap.

------
leblancfg
I think you taking the high road and aim for the "gain this startup as a
Chinese subsidiary" route is the win-win situation here. Of course, I can only
read so much from your description, and maybe some things don't apply in your
case. Temper everything I say with your knowledge of your Chinese userbase (if
any).

I mean sure, it might look like an affront on the work you've put in your
site, but in the end, you've also found another group doing what you're also
doing, probably just as dedicated as you are. Depending on the mutual language
skills (maybe even consider using a telephone interpreter service
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_interpreting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_interpreting)),
you might be able to find common ground and work together towards a
collaboration agreement or outright acquisition -- whatever it is, just _make
sure_ to have it in writing that your company came up with the concept and
design. Win-win for both sides, and that contract is then legally binding.

Even more, if you're in talks with a very large Chinese company, having
Chinese collaborators might actually work in your favor.

TL;DR: You might have more to gain by working on a collaboration deal first.
Just never lose sight of the fact that, in the end, they were stealing.

~~~
bflesch
Thanks for your encouraging advice. Your last point really hits home. I have
too limited knowledge of the Chinese business world to know whether this
behavior is standard operating procedure, or if it is very, very large red
flag to not sign any written deals with such business men.

As you said, the huge bonus is that they are dedicated to eSports as well and
have put substantial effort into capturing our (potential) Chinese user base.
Thank you as well for the pointer to phone interpreting services, I would've
tried to leverage some friends in China, but this seems like a good
alternative.

------
tmaly
Well if by clone you also mean copies your content? You could probably file
some complaints with major search engines. Also may be able to file complaints
via DMCA. If they are using any US based payment processors, you could send
complaints in to them.

~~~
Keyframe
That's pretty much all you can do. Try to remove from search engines and
complain online a lot until people (your clients) notice - so they are aware.
Litigation in China... forget about that.

~~~
andy_ppp
I'm just thinking how amazingly fun it would be to spend a few years of your
life on a legal case, in another country, in another language and spending
vast sums of money in the certain knowledge that you'll loose :-)

------
tylercubell
This is what ends up happening when you don't have an economic moat [1]. If
you want to stay on top, you'll need to out-innovate your competitor and give
your market a strong reason to stick with you over them. Do or die.

[1]:
[http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/economicmoat.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/economicmoat.asp)

~~~
caminante
I think OP understands the "moat" concept based on his comment here [1]. Also
based on this comment and others of his, he seems mostly anxious and worried
about the implications of someone near-cloning his front end.

He's just asking around to find what his options are.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11458359)

------
auwal
You should probably ignore this and just get back to work.

You've got plenty of competition on your side of the world. Stop looking for
competition else where.

------
tryitnow
If I were this "very large" Chinese IT company and I really wanted to buy your
business, I'd create a clone to give me better negotiating leverage.

Edit: just to clarify - I personally wouldn't do this, because it is possibly
illegal and absolutely unethical. But very large companies (in China and
elsewhere) are not known for being ethical.

~~~
bflesch
Unfortunately it hasn't progressed so far that we are actually negotiating
yet. But the perspective is there.

I can't say our website is very artistic, but here in Germany those laws can
be enforced with much strictness, and people just wouldn't imitate you like
that.

Maybe this is the payback for what the Samwer brothers have done to silicon
valley entrepreneurs..

~~~
studentrob
How certain are you that their site has a genuine flurry of activity/users?

If I were a Chinese clone with this strategy, I would try to simulate that
activity as soon as possible to make it seem like a legitimate threat. Can you
get in touch with any would-be users within China who speak English and
Chinese to gauge whether or not this site is legitimate before worrying too
much? It seems you are short on facts at this point.

~~~
bflesch
Very good point. We will have a look at that. They only joined two days ago
and all their events are password locked, which makes it hard to gauge real
activity.

If they do for-money events then they most likely send around money through
some payment apps which is hard to track for us.

We don't have very many Chinese users at hand but I will ask in the team to
get more info on their marketing activities.

~~~
studentrob
If you do go into acquisition mode, I'd take a good hard look at their
numbers. My pessimistic point of view is it'd be next to impossible for you to
verify anything, even if you were Chinese, without some inside information.
The protections you're used to just don't exist there yet.

------
zoom6628
Trevelyan advise spot on about startup local company. Fight on their own turf
and it also opens new market for you. With locals on side you can also do
better quality research on competitors.

Take kev6168 advice and do your paperwork: trademark and copyright
registrations, company registration. With that in hand, or at least started,
you can then contact their service providers, like aliyun, and advise of your
intended legal action against that clone and their providers.

Above all dont lose focus on your own product. Defending can be a vacuum of
time and energy and your own product gets lost in the process. Yes you have to
defend, but best defense is a better product and brand awareness.

Cloning/knockoffs is an issue globally and happens in lots of industries. Get
over it. Ignore commenters/ppl with vitriolic rhetoric and emotional responses
(i.e. the trolls) - you need a clear head to get thru this unscathed.

------
codezero
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455670)
is a repost with more context

~~~
bflesch
Yes, that is the post where I tried to tell the whole story. This thread is my
faulty first submission :/

------
gyardley
When UMeng cloned Flurry, I could be wrong but I don't believe we did
anything, and I'm pretty sure that was the right call. Any lengthy legal
dispute will distract you from other important things; legal disputes that are
likely to go nowhere are likely to distract you for no benefit whatsoever.

I empathize - I was a bit annoyed by the first version of UMeng, which was a
pretty close copy of Flurry's web design and feature set. But if your
situation is anything like ours was, you'll see the companies evolve away from
each other over time as you each adapt to your respective markets - and you
probably didn't have the staff and cultural knowledge to support the Chinese
market anyway.

------
popnfreshspk
How do you deal with your competitors in the US? i.e.
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/esports-
hero](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/esports-hero) (raised $1m)

I feel like you're better off building out your core product and finding user
traction in your markets instead of worrying about the plethora of competitors
that exist out there. I imagine that if I found one, there are probably many
more.

------
50CNT
German working at a startup in Beijing here. That's a daft case of C2C (copy
to china) you've got on your hands there.

You probably won't be able to gain them as a Chinese subsidiary, they'll think
you're delusional, hell, that sounds delusional to me.

Them having investors (if they do), doesn't mean much if anything. C2Cs of
startups with traction are generally seen as a safe bet by investors, hell,
there's teams specializing on it. Money is sloshing around, the silliest
things are getting funded.

Litigating is probably pointless. Best case they get scared, drop the thing
and another C2C gets sent the code they have.

Clones are to be expected, and as other comments have said, it might even be
the Chinese IT company you're dealing with that started the thing, or maybe
they've started building something internally. They're probably looking to
screw you over as well.

Really, if you're looking to compete in China, you break out your copy of Sun
Tsu and leaf through your Machiavelli. Out-engineer them, get some boots on
the ground, find some Chinese to work with, lob some nuisances their way, grow
in China and squash them. That'll put you in a stronger negotiation position
with Tencent/Baidu/Ali/Whoever as well. Your advantage is that whilst chinese
coders are cheap, and they can throw 20 engineers at the problem, most of them
aren't very good. If you don't allow them to grow more than you do, and you're
pushing features whilst they're accruing tech debt, they will loose that war
of attrition eventually. Especially if you go for things that are hard.

Good luck man.

PS: If your business plan looks like the work of a paranoid madman, you're on
the right track to compete in the land far east.

~~~
bflesch
Thanks for your blunt advice, much appreciated. It really shocked me because
we don't have any significant cash flows at the moment, so they must be buying
into our vision (which is a good thing).

Let's hope we can keep the pace and don't waste our potential. Best of luck to
you as well, will ping you when I ever put foot to Beijing again.

~~~
50CNT
It's a nice city, wonderful air.

If finances permit, I'd still do some Chinese registrations though, just so
you're covered on that front. I recommend at least getting a small foothold
over there, just in case that once you're big, they decide that haogege is
chinese and legal, and you're not.

If it makes you feel better, lots of Chinese are just as clueless about the
"West" as we are about China. Met a guy at an event last Thursday who asked me
and a friend about the feasibility of selling phone cases in Europe and the
US. To be fair, they are a big fashion accessory in China, but really only in
China. We told him that if he thinks that going into a saturated market with a
low margin product people don't care about that gets replaced maybe once a
year sounds like a fun time to him, he is welcome to try. I'm not sure whether
he got it.

There's also the thing that really competent people over here would probably
not care to copy a German eSports startup 1-to-1. They might have some
mediocre PHP programmers and probably someone who knows enough frontend stuff
to copy over all the assets. If you drop features, you should watch out for
how long it takes them to duplicate them. If it takes as long as it took you
to write them, be worried. If takes far longer for them to step up, you've got
an edge. If it's instant, you might want to redouble on your security.

------
meric
>> But he also mentioned that they already have investors.

He's bluffing. The activity could be paid for.

He wants to look strong, either to dissuade you from competing in the same
market, or for you start negotiating with him, giving him the advantage.

But it's not like you can sit on your hands either.

Go right ahead and add Chinese translation to your website, I say. You can
then use the same i18n infrastructure and hire Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tagalog
translators and expand to the rest of South East Asia. Do Traditional Chinese
as well, and get into Taiwan and Hong Kong. Translators from upwork.com should
be quite cheap. Be careful to only send the translatable message files,
though, don't send the code - I've heard of people getting their code ripped
this way.

Try do that in a month.

Then you have them surrounded, and you can negotiate with them from a position
of strength.

You can send them a grateful email thanking them for introducing you to the
Asian market.

Send a bottle of European wine as your regards.

~~~
bflesch
I like your leadership attitude :-) From the other people commenting in this
thread I figured that cooperation is not a realistic goal, so we will try to
up our Asia game.

But we also need some people from the local eSports community to work with/for
us.

------
ninjavis
Kudos though for actually building something worth being copied :)

At first it would seem like a very bad thing, but if you think about it, they
are merely reinforcing your idea. I say give them the finger and just focus on
making the best of your idea no matter what those guys are doing.

I wish you all the best for that!

"Lions aren't concerned about the opinions of sheep"

~~~
bflesch
Feels good to hear. Our site has equally large parts of logic on client /
server side so I am unsure if they can really out-execute us. But the first
mover advantage is there, and we currently can't cover Chinese language.

Working hard on bringing the other stuff on the road, so your advice bodes
well. Thanks again!

------
tlogan
Lets put evil Chinese people aside (joke/sarcasm).

I can replicate your business 100% and I'm not in China. What are you going to
do?

~~~
bflesch
Food for thought. I don't think you would clone it in such an obvious fashion.

Several other projects tried to do it, and we currently have some SV VC-fueled
competitors. But I don't think they have the roadmap we do.

Funny thing is we spent the better part of last year VC-shopping and everyone
passed on us. Some shit VC from Berlin forwarded all info to the CEO of EU's
largest eSports business and they all said our business idea sucks.

So until some college buddy of a VC has the same idea and gets easy money (I'm
looking at you USV) the whole pay-for-money thing still has to grow.

From a technical perspective the implementation of user-friendly real-time
tournaments was really hard to get right and can't easily be copied.

~~~
tlogan
I think your answered your question: From a technical perspective the
implementation of user-friendly real-time tournaments was really hard to get
right.

So you have your "secret sauce" (that is real-time tournaments). You just need
to make your design not to be plain bootstrap so that it does look like you
cloned somebody's else website.

------
pedrohenrique
Hey, Benjamin. It's a hard subject you've pointed out. It never happened to me
still, I remember when I was on a conference from @archdaily creator David
Basulto, he was telling his experience when a Chinese blog starts to replicate
his content to the Chinese market, exactly what happened to you. Was quite
interesting because he tried everything to pull his Chinese cloned website
down with no luck at all, he even went to China to see if he could do
anything. At the end he hired his Chinese copycat, proposing to he become part
of the Arch Daily's team as a Chinese correspondent, which the Chinese guy
accepted. I really don't now how much they've copied you and how they are
operating, but have a similar strategy could help you :D all the best,

Pedro H.

------
petervandijck
Here's something you could try.

1\. Find some reputable investors active in China. Start talks with them.

2\. Contact the CEO and say "Thanks for pointing out to us the value of the
Chinese market. We will now 1. move into the Chinese market (mention your
talks to investors) and 2. proceed to sue you and your investors (who our
legal team is contacting now). The alternative is that we set up a licensing
deal (or that you pay us a 1-time fee to make this go away).

Long term though my guess is that you should focus on your market and forget
about China.

(It is possible I've watched too much House of Cards lately ;)

------
spacefight
eSports, really? Is that even legal in Germany?

[http://www.gamblingsites.org/laws/germany/](http://www.gamblingsites.org/laws/germany/)

~~~
bflesch
There's some room.

------
xiaopingguo
While "c'est du chinois" is really not a valid excuse these days, with so many
chinese people/students available all across Europe, ready (and hungry) to
help Western companies deal with China's local systems/language, it should be
noted that having Chinese competitors has not prevented Google/Facebook/Amazon
from making their billions.

Focus should primarily remain on product and users.

------
bflesch
Sorry for the double submission, I now added the text to this post as well.

The thing is that they created the site from scratch but it is exactly like
our site only directly aimed at Chinese users.

Our website is www.strivewire.com, and they use www.haogegebisai.com

They are not hotlinking anything, and we're shying away from an open
confrontation. Just wanted to know if you know of some good strategies to
approach this issue.

------
lnanek2
Fortunately, I was running an image site and they hot linked my images. So I
only served users with their referrer thumbnails instead of full size images.
I also used image magick through PHP to append a footer with my site URL and
logo stuck on the bottom. Free advertising win!

------
pankajdoharey
The best solution would be to acquire it, but that would lead to companies in
china copying other companies websites and products in turn starting an entire
chain of copycat blackmails. The situation is definitely hard. But a temporary
solution is definitely acquiring the firm.

------
alien3d
Think good way, they create a market for it. If those customer don't satisfy
they will moved to your site. Still need to remember 30 days development e.g
will not same with your previous development days and also no matter money and
developer they hired, time is essence.

------
cbeach
Step 1 (going well so far): put their URL on the front page of HN, launching
an effective DDOS on their unsuspecting infrastructure. Their site is already
creaking under the load. And I'm sure we can all contribute a few more random
clicks to eat up their bandwidth ;-)

~~~
bflesch
I see we're working on our own demise ;)

------
jiten_bansal
When you can't go legal, Go illegal. Hire a hacker and get the site down.

~~~
bflesch
Problem is, we're not providing the Chinese userbase any better solution. They
have Chinese translations, whereas we're an English-only website.

Furthermore they are hosted on AliBaba's cloud (from what I was able to see),
so it looks like a more professional and IT-affine implementation.

------
douglance
There's a dude in India that ripped off my entire business model including
branding. I have no idea what to do about that.

~~~
bflesch
We can relate to that. What makes us a bit anxious is the fact that they are
backed by investors. We have no idea who did invest and how much. This info
would help us to assess how much of a threat they are.

------
rmanolis
Do you know what would be nice ? A way to encrypt the data before viewing to
the user and the js will decrypt the data by calling a websocket api to give
the password. This way for each specific websocket session you encrypt and
decrypt the data differently. Also you can hide recognizable information in
the data so when copied you will search the history to find who did it.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That would not work, would be a poor user experience, would be technically
infeasible, and would be ineffective.

You can't publish content to the public and prevent copies being made. That's
the lesson we need to take away from the DRM nonsense that we went through
(and to some extent, are still going through).

------
cgtyoder
Do you have any (high) political connections in Germany? You could try to ask
for a (huge) favor - have someone in the German consulate ask their Chinese
counterparts for a(another huge) favor, and get the Chinese govt to shut them
down. A long shot, but if you have the right friends, it might work.

------
chris_wot
I thought with .com domains you could have them deregistered for fraud?

------
littlehero
one question comes to my mind "if your product copied by Tencent,what should
you do?" this question often asked in China.

------
zxcvvcxz
Here's another perspective on this issue, that might be a bit unpopular, but I
feel needs to be said:

Why do you feel entitled to do something relatively copy-able and _not_ be
copied? Because you're European?

Patents and that sort of legal protection apply to discoveries and inventions
(and even then, the rules change with the Chinese). To be blunt, you're making
a website for people to organize around video games. I'm not trying to
belittle what you're doing (admittedly a huge former fan of competitive
Starcraft on ICCup, CS and Halo PC on Xfire, etc) but come on you're not
splitting the atom in any sense.

Compete and beat the clones. They're not going to go away, that's reality. Did
you know that Facebook has the exact same problem you do with Renren?

So how can you compete? Understand your users better to offer superior
customer service; stay on top of new features; build a network effect into
your product. Though I'm thinking it already has one, since tournaments need
people, and people will congregate on the best platform. I know e-sports is
huge (and growing) in Europe, and I'd find it quite surprising if eventually
the winning platform for these people to organize tournaments is on a Chinese
site!

Best of luck Benjamin, I do wish you the best. I don't think there's an easy
answer for you, just stay pragmatic given the realities of what you're up
against.

------
pink_dinner
I would just find security flaws in their software and use them to appropriate
their client base. Most Chinesw clones are thrown together.

It's not like they will be able to do much about it. If they do, you can use
it as a bargining chip and go after them for infringing on your copyright.

Parasite companies in China think that they have an advantage by not having to
follow US laws, but what they don't realize is that it can also work against
them.

------
ArtDev
digital millennium copyright act notice:
[http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/](http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/)

~~~
michaelmior
I don't think US copyright law will be very helpful here.

~~~
codezero
It can at least pull them out of search results to dent any organic/paid
traffic they are trying to drive to their site.

~~~
bflesch
We're currently not focusing on the Chinese market, and afaik they are mainly
focusing on it. The website is in Chinese language, but 100% looks and feels
like ours.

