
Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides? - nathanh
http://steveblank.com/2009/12/07/someone-stole-my-startup-idea-%E2%80%93-part-2-they-raised-money-with-my-slides/
======
pg
I discovered an unexpected benefit of being plagiarized: it makes imitators
easy to find. A couple days ago I was curious how many YC clones there are
now, so I tried to make an up to date list. The most fruitful source was to
search in Google for distinctive phrases from our application form.
Practically all of them copy that, and more often than not they leave chunks
of verbatim text unchanged.

(I found 26. Some are still unlaunched.)

~~~
illumen
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,

------
gyardley
I wish I had read this a year and a half ago. Before my current startup
launched but after it'd gotten angel funding, someone learned about our
business from an indiscreet angel investor. That someone then started a very
similar business.

Idea theft? Maybe. Did it make me angry? Definitely. Not only did I have the
usual competitor irritation (these people are out to take food out of my
hypothetical future children's mouths, etc.), the potential thievery made me
livid, to the point where it was impacting my overall happiness.

Over a year later, the two respective companies have iterated in different
directions, to the point where I can't really consider them a competitor -
their business isn't our business, and vice versa. All that fussing ended up
being a pointless waste of energy.

~~~
megamark16
"All that fussing ended up being a pointless waste of energy."

Well said, sir.

------
sireat
Ethics aside, if a company/startup can't be bothered to make new slides after
stealing an idea, it will likely make similar inflexible "shortcuts" later on
and fail miserably (as the article showed).

~~~
ajross
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?

~~~
Retric
Professional looking slides can take a ridiculous amount of time to create and
they add zero value outside of their intended presentation. Honestly, for an
early stage start up the safest and best thing to steal is probably their
slides. Stealing code creates long term problems, and if you have a customer
list worth stealing then you are already a significant competitor.

~~~
rjurney
He's addressing the fear of 'stealing my great idea!' and stealing slides and
starting a company based on them certainly qualifies.

------
michael_dorfman
The key: "While the common wisdom said that our success was going to be
determined by which company executed better, the common wisdom was wrong. In a
startup success isn’t about just execution, it’s how well we could take our
original hypothesis and _learn, discover, iterate_ and execute."

Good to see these guys kept their head in the game, instead of getting wrapped
up in lawsuits.

~~~
ErrantX
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!
:)

------
alexandros
The competitor may have done them great good, too. I find pissed-off-ness can
be a great motivator at times.

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

------
csbutler
The people who stole these slides remind me of a child who cheats at spelling
in primary school.

They may do well in tests, but as soon as they need to actually spell
something they'll have no chance (hope my spelling is ok, by the way).

The other issue is that someone who would steel like that. Would probably also
have other ethical shortcomings. For example they may have no problems ripping
off customers, employees or suppliers. Some people may think that is good in
business. I don't.

~~~
julio_the_squid
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.

------
roundsquare
Interesting, but scary. In this case it looks like an unethical and
incompetent competitor. However, if they had actually followed up on the
stolen strategy properly, it might have posed a bigger problem.

~~~
shpxnvz
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.

~~~
roundsquare
_t 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_

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow this reasoning. Why is it critical that they come
up with the initial strategy first in order to succeed? Why wouldn't stealing
the initial strategy and then evolving it work? (Obviously one consider that
the people who came up with the original idea had some insight that puts them
a step ahead, but, to me, that doesn't seem like it would necessarily be
enough).

------
Sukotto
"We made sure our competitor knew [a bunch of stuff]. We made sure they heard
how shocked and upset we were that they were going to beat us to an
announcement in our market."

How do you do that? How do you ensure "they" know what you want them to know?

~~~
gojomo
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.

------
robdor
Reminds me of this post from 37signals a while back.
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1561-why-you-shouldnt-copy-
us...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1561-why-you-shouldnt-copy-us-or-anyone-
else)

The definate danger of simply copying an idea is not knowing the motivation,
thought processes and discarded tangents that lead to that idea.

------
kevinholesh
"Over the next two years we left them in the dust."

You're golden then. There will always be people that try to leech off your
success, but you have the ability to get their first.

------
pronoiac
Here's the link to the post on part 1:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=974341>

------
clistctrl
Any idea what the competitor is? I ask because I went through an upgrade where
we helped a client move from Epiphany to Sugar CRM/Lyris ListManager (assuming
this is the Epiphany I think it is)

if you want to know my experience... both are TERRIBLE products.

~~~
fnid
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.

~~~
gvb
Steve's startup resume includes Zilog, Convergent Technologies, MIPS Computers
(now MIPS Technologies), Ardent Computer, SuperMac Technologies, Rocket
Science Games, and E.piphany (I'm not counting 3M/Interactive and ESL as
startups).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Gary_Blank>

Zilog, Convergent Technologies, MIPS Computers, and SuperMac Technologies
definitely had good products in their heydays.

Ardent Computer and Rocket Science Games apparently/arguably didn't produce
much product.

I don't know much about E.piphany, but it still exists and has a product
(albeit not well regarded by the OP).

I would say his companies had a good balance of marketing and real product.

