Curebit (YC W11) Raises $1.2 Million For Online Referral System

Thus ensuring we will never do business with Curebit. That's lazy and unprofessional at best, even if you're A/B testing. Use Optimizely and host your own assets.

outworlder2• 14 years ago

So, these guys get YCombinator and other investors to give them $1.2M and they still have to rip off 37 signals' design.

I wonder which startup got rejected in their place.

nomadomatic• 14 years ago

What if curebit copied highrise's product - not the design mind you, but the core functionality of the product - and used a completely different, original design to dress up the product? Would you throw a similar tantrum?

This is something that's always perplexed me. Companies copy other companies' business models and compete for the same customers all the time, but that's considered fair game. But if a design is copied, shit hits the fan.

Frankly, I'd rather someone copy my design and go after a diff niche of customers than copy my product and come after my customers.

To the guys at Curebit - ignore this noise. The focus should be on creating an awesome product, getting paying customers and generating profits. You guys have an awesome product and deserve the funding. Congrats :)

P.S. You should remove the hotlinks tho. No need to use their bandwidth.

BrianMatch• 14 years ago

Personally, I don't think it's a big deal. The Curebits designer was obviously inspired by the Highrise design, but didn't copy it pixel-by-pixel. If it helps Curebits convert more customers then more power to them--it's not like they're stealing Highrise customers.

Linking to someone else's assets, however, is just wrong.

metalab• 14 years ago

"but it didn't copy it pixel-by-pixel" They used their image assets. How much more pixel-by-pixel can you get?

acrum• 14 years ago

"Inspired"? Sorry, but are you trolling? It's about as close to an exact copy as you can get.

jsavimbi3• 14 years ago

They didn't copy it pixel-by-pixel because they're either too lazy to do so, too stupid to know how or both. And no, there will be no power to them.

comice• 14 years ago

you can make the smallest viable product even smaller when you pinch designs and externalise the costs of your asset hosting!

jamesau2• 14 years ago

LOL. Eric Ries would be proud.

allangrant• 14 years ago

Hey - I'm one of the founders of Curebit, and yes - it was a boneheaded move..

We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run.

Clearly it was stupid. It was not meant to offend anyone and we are adding credit where due. (We'll take it down if DHH insists!)

Our new designer will take a crack at more than our homepage... we need all our UI "designed".. not redesigned, but designed - because we're primarily backend guys. Yes, this landing page variation was heavily inspired (read: blatantly ripped off) from Highrise -- because these are the peeps we aspire to, and they've done a lot of testing to figure out what works: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-tes...

We're running a "ghetto test" - this homepage variant does not even share a common CSS file with the rest of the code base. It's been live less than a week.

The idea was to just see how the conversion characteristics were before investing a lot of time into making a "real design" out of the lessons (prominent testimonial, light copy focused on value props). Hence the hot linking, inline styles, etc. It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design.. that credit is well deserved and will be added shortly - a big oversight on my part.. we launch some stuff fast (other things deliberately), and this was one of those fast things.

Lesson to us: add credits, and be more explicit what we're testing... ask permission instead of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime, please forgive us? :)

papalalu2• 14 years ago

I don't think credit is really going to cut it in this situation.. and permission is unlikely to have been given had you actually asked.

neilkelty• 14 years ago

You realize you set your company up for enormous civil penalties here - $200-$150,000.

And, since you've admitted to stealing their site straight up - it might be "willful and deliberate", it could be considered a criminal act.

I'm no lawyer - but one probably wrote this: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/penalties.html

timsally• 14 years ago

We'll take it down if DHH insists!

It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design

Lesson to us: add credits

Crediting someone for their property doesn't make stealing it ok. By default, stealing is wrong. Waiting for an objection and/or linking to the owner doesn't change that. This seems like a problematic worldview for a young company.

dmerfield• 14 years ago

Close, but no cigar: http://mee.la/28983

redguava3• 14 years ago

Your response here makes it worse not better. You copied from them blatantly including linking to their assets and then your first lesson learnt is "add credits"... really?

You are still not planning on taking it down, just adding a credit to their site?

I personally would never use a service that has this level of integrity, I wouldn't trust any of my information with it.

kingsidharth• 14 years ago

Lesson to you: Make your own shit if you want credibility.

ahoyhere3• 14 years ago

The real lesson here is a hidden one for YCombinator startups:

YC gives you money, but they apparently do not provide you with advisors, handlers, lawyers or PR people who will intervene to stop you from making such a boneheaded, potentially explosive move, nor step in and help you figure out how to gracefully recover from a mistake.

Seriously? Credit where credit is due? Ha ha, it was stupid, we stole your design AND your assets, hee, aren't we a trip, funding, something something, TechCrunch, split testing makes it alllll better.

keesmacklin2• 14 years ago

Looks like you were using the design for a new product as well (http://www.sharebooster.com).

http://i.imgur.com/MXCuN.png

You going to take that down also?

asianmack2• 14 years ago

You missed this in the 37signals post you referenced.

"Please note: What works for us may not work for you. Please do your own testing. Your conversion rates may suffer if you copy us."

dkrich2• 14 years ago

Please stop using the term "ghetto testing." Nobody knows what the hell that means and nobody thinks that that's okay.

The proper course is to apologize, take it down, and move on. Not make lame, half-assed excuses which just perpetuate the situation.

rskopecek2• 14 years ago

Allangrant, as you stated you are a back end developer. While that's good to note, it doesn't exclude the outcome that DHH and the community have already commented on.

However, I think something that is missing is a little more guidance. Other than the issues others have communicated, the web page showed that your company hasn't established, even in very raw form, it's own style that is best for its users. It's normal to reflect and be inspired by others designs. I would even recommend that you take screenshots of the design styles that speak to you. From that point though, the screen shots should be used as "internal" discussion materials that help your company find the essence of its own style. That style should always be taking what's best for your product/service and user base, into the style characteristics.

Once you've found your core style, express it and iterate over it using each iteration as a piece of more relavent inspiration to your style (37Signals recently released a cool video on their blog that demonstrates this process through their eyes). The results should make you proud enough to express and share it with your customers. Only at that point do you finally make it public. After that keep iterating over it. If you utilize external inspiration, make sure that you've iterated over it enough that your style doesn't feel like a knockoff. You should be able to identify this easily and odds are, if you've been going through all this it won't be. However, if you have concerns just take screen shots of your style and the screen shots of what externally inspired you,...show them to some people who don't work for your company and weren't involved with the design process. They should be able to 1) pick up on your style and 2) agree that it isn't a knockoff. Given the situation you are in, I would recommend this heavily to help give piece of mind.

I realize that you wanted to gain from the lessons learned from 37Signals internal design iteration process as well as other companies. However, if you note what I said above, it means they were focusing "also" on their product and their customers. Which means if you directly reflect your design from theirs, you weren't focusing enough on your customers. You might have intended to give your customers a great design experience, but without going through the process above, your website is considered not authentic...and as a result people focus on the their feeling of "this looks oddly familiar" instead of focusing on what your product can do for them.

Many, if not all of the people who have commented have gone through their own artistic design process to build one or more designs. And at times it can be "hell" (fun, but still) to create something that the designer feels is good enough to share/use. It is a compliment that someone is inspired by your design. But when it's closer to a knockoff it can make the designer feel like they sacrificed him/her-self for your free ride. If they intended for it to be given away, then the benefit you receive gives them whatever good feeling they were looking for. I'm sure you have, like many people, worked insane hours that took away from family, friends, and even yourself.

I hope humility, honesty, and hard work guide your company to a design that you can be proud of.

Good luck and I hope this all helps.

jsavimbi3• 14 years ago

> did not really think through the implications of what we were doing

But the part about stealing someone else's work and passing it off as your own obviously had some thought put into it. One could only imagine what other parts of your app were repurposed from third parties.

jcampbell12• 14 years ago

Thanks for that. Now I am far less sad about stealing Curebit's concept. Their idea is fantastic, but I found it easier to just copy the concept than integrate with their APIs.

Does anyone else find it strange that the article claims they have 1000 customers, and minimum pricing of $50/month, but they raised $1.2M? Why bother raising money if you are already close to a run-rate of $1M? My guess is they have closer to 1000 signups, not active 1000 customers.

mp3jeep01• 14 years ago

I doubt very many people find it strange -- just because you have revenue, or are profitable, does not mean you're "in the clear". Companies typically raise additional capital so they can accelerate their growth. Your assumption that companies only raise because they aren't cash-flow positive is misguided.

redguava3• 14 years ago

Revenue is not the same as profit, they could very easily be running at a loss even with that amount of revenue. We have seen this in extremes with companies like Groupon lately.

d8niel• 14 years ago

Great job guys!

buddhamagnet• 14 years ago

How lame is that. Jesus it's not hard to come up with your own design. Crackers.

freejack• 14 years ago

I was super excited to see the data presented and understand its implications for my business and then when I read the comments on YC and TC, all that washed away as I realized that the credibility of the data was probably about as good as the credibility of the designers...

Initially, I was excited to check them out because their referral rates look a lot better than mine. Then as I paused to consider what was really going on, brought on by the design controversy, I realize that there was a strong likelihood that these rates couldn't be all that solid because as an MVP, their sample size is probably immaterially small.

I wouldn't say that I'm writing Curebit off, but it will be a while before I'm excited about them again...

sachingulaya2• 14 years ago

It's pretty amazing that you guys would do something so stupid and post it here to HN.

pmin• 14 years ago

Congrats!!!

alexwolfe• 14 years ago

This is really upsetting for so many reasons. The intent to use these site designs took time and effort to implement. There had to be hours of time that they knew without a doubt they were stealing work they did not produce. To feign ignorance in this case in unacceptable.

Furthermore these guys have raised 1.2 million dollars. To think that someone in this position would raise that amount in capital and pull this kind of bullshit is offensive. This is a black eye for the valley.

logicman• 14 years ago

Very immature!

earbitscom3• 14 years ago

Serving the assets was a big mistake, but isn't this the same forum that overwhelmingly says copying isn't stealing and that no harm is done to the original creator when you duplicate their work? Now, suddenly everyone's a hard ass about IP? In this case more than all the others argued here, if you exclude the assets problem, there was zero detriment caused by using this design. It's not a competing product, and it did nothing to the value of the original work. If you can write off the assets issue as a bad mistake, and it was, I just don't see how 99% of the HN crowd can suddenly take the high road on appropriation of creative work. Have some consistency.

redguava3• 14 years ago

I think there is a difference about being inspired by ideas or concepts in a design and plain ripping it off completely. That for me is the big difference.

As for no harm done, I don't agree with that. A lot of 37signals audience and marketing is through their audience that loves to hear what they say about design amongst other things. Having a cutting edge marketing website and blogging about it helps to generate interest in what they do. For someone that didn't know 37signals is the original designer of that style of site, no credit would go to them. The guy from Curebit even stated that he was planning to write up a blog about how the testing goes... why should they get the credit and pageviews for reviewing the a/b testing on someones elses design?

Go read @allangrant recent twitter posts and see if you still feel sympathetic.

potater2• 14 years ago

Sure, people argue on the semantics of IP infringement and while many feel that intellectual property laws are woefully one sided, most of what I've seen suggests that at least a fair number of people feel that copying material in contrary to the creator's wishes is wrong. Do some folks do it anyway? No doubt. Regardless, I think much of the hard assedness has been in response to the media companies and lawmaker's approaches in addressing the issue--- poor legislation that overreaches, failure to address the actual issues that leads to piracy, copyright length extension, circumvention provisions & fair use implications, etc. In the end, I can be against efforts like SOPA while also being against ip infringement. Similarly, I would assert that it is not inconsistent to feel that curebit's approach to publicly using another other company's design w/o permission directly in their commercial product is unfortunate while also feeling like IP in the US needs to be retooled.

Ultimately though, this forum compromises many viewpoints. While there will be trends, consistency when dealing with large numbers of folks seems unrealistic (but again, I don't think having issues with contemporary IP law and being against using another site's design in a commercial product demonstrates a consistency issue. It's more of a "dude, not cool" thing to me.).

In regard to the lack of detriment, certainly at least one representative of 37Signals is unhappy with it. If it were my design, I'd prefer that my efforts remain tied solely to my products given the time and money spent on them since I think there is marketing and branding value in developing a reasonably unique look and feel even if the products themselves are not direct competitors. Do I recognize that designs will inspire other designs? Certainly. The line between a copied design and inspired one is blurry. Would I personally give more leeway to someone who was just experimenting for a non-commercial, personal project? Probably. This, however, was a commercial entity that just received a big check for their (and 37signals') efforts. That said, if I were an employee of curebit, I'd probably have felt uncomfortable with the approach they took regardless of any legal implications that may exist. It would just kinda feel wrong, ya know?

Anyway, my initial reaction was along the lines of "well, that was stupid of them" and progressed to "WTF is wrong with this guy?" due to Allan's tweets in response to dhh. Some of his tweets have almost felt like he was trolling for controversy/publicity. Regardless, I really think he should simply stop tweeting at this point and let further public responses come from someone better equipped to NOT dig themselves deeper.

jsavimbi3• 14 years ago

> It's more of a "dude, not cool" thing to me.

I think it's more of an issue that calls into serious question their integrity, motivations and skills. It's pretty hard to start a company out of an incubator with community support when you'e signaled that you've no ethical regard for the very community that supports you.

nhangen• 14 years ago

The difference for me is that in our community, people should know better, especially if you're good enough to get into YC.

DanBC• 14 years ago

Taking IP for your own personal use is different to taking IP for business use.

You see people on HN saying it's okay to download a tv show; you don't see anyone saying it's okay to burn that show to dvd and sell it many times.

ngsayjoe2• 14 years ago

Just subscribed to Curebit $50 / Month plan ... it seems like the product i've been waiting for all ...

ngsayjoe2• 14 years ago

Hey, guys i really like your product ... but i think you could spend your newly found venture fund to invest on a good designer.

(PS: Even your email template is exact ripoff from Groupon ... i think you guys can do better than this.)

(Suggestion: Could you please add "Contacts" connector on top of your email widget ... now i have to type in emails one by one for inviting friends)

startupfounder• 14 years ago

"And it was the same way with design. I was totally psyched to copy a Müller-Brockmann poster, a Designgraphik composition, or an Apple UI. Merely executing the copy was a thrill. But now every design is supposed to be the next great thing. And as days and weeks and months go by, the design level stays the same while the aspiration goes higher and higher.

So maybe it’s time to take one of these Fridays off and just copy something."

(http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2412-how-do-you-turn-inspirat...)

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

Just visited CureBit.. Hmm I think your landing page needs some work. The typography looks a little amateurish (get your customers to refer your friends). The product looks intriguing though. Just fix your landing page because it probably will turn off a lot of customers.

Curebit (YC W11) Raises $1.2 Million For Online Referral System

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