Ask HN: Bigger startup is stealing my features, what do i do?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7713340

by tehwebdev • 12 years ago

14 23 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I run a bootstrapped start-up by myself in a niche industry. I have built it over the past 5+ years and just recently it started to take off. Other startups have started to pop-up and have noticed me, but one in particular is copying my features.

Their cloned features aren't nearly as good, but my fear is that this is just the start.

I know how the game is played... companies steal other companies stuff all the time. Just look at the app stores. I also know the fact they are copying me means my idea is vindicated.

The problem is that I am just one person and this particular start-up has around 3 employees and a million dollars in funding. I don't make enough money to hire an employee full-time. So I am in an extremely tough spot.

So what do you guys suggest I do? Any advice?

I could be extremely aggressive about this and pose as a user of theirs and write negative reviews online. The hope would be to nab popular "review" keywords in Google so their users find them and stay clear. Though I am not sure if that's worth my time when I could use it improving my product.

codezero• 12 years ago

I really hope your first instinct isn't to post fake negative reviews, it won't work out well.

You have a few options:

1) Just keep doing what you are doing the best you can do and stop using a measuring stick against copy-cats. Don't get into a feature-creep war.

2) Focus on your existing users and work hard to retain them and use them to generate more growth. Get them to talk about your product positively.

3) Find out how those people are getting users instead of you and try to replicate that.

Competition is a good thing, it means there is a need. Your feature set is only a small part of what users want, so make sure you are nailing other areas like support and satisfaction.

tehwebdev3• 12 years ago

No, my first thought was these guys don't have any creative talent and I wish I could tell their CEO that I'm not buying his load of bullshit.

Your comments resonate with me though. After calming down a bit I went back to writing code. I keep telling myself I can only worry about the things I can control. And my product is the only thing I can control and work on improving.

Thanks for commenting.

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

"I could be extremely aggressive about this and pose as a user of theirs and write negative reviews online."

That isn't "aggressive", that is morally bankrupt.

tehwebdev3• 12 years ago

I am angry and most likely not thinking clearly. Which is why I come to HN. :(

georgemcbay2• 12 years ago

That's understandable. I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset and even play out revenge fantasies in your head, but focus that anger on making your stuff better instead of fighting a war of dirty tricks to the bottom; we've already got way too much of that in the world already.

amarcus• 12 years ago

Believe me, the worst thing a company can do is focus too much on what its competitors are doing. You lose sight of the bigger picture and will always be following behind somebody who is a leader.

Keep doing what you are doing. Obviously, you are on the right path. If they are copying you, it's a good thing. It means that they don't know the industry as well as you and they don't know how to solve the pain-points without copying you. This means that you are always one step ahead of them.

Keep building and marketing your product. It's the best thing to do. Don't be complacent always be innovating. If they are copying you, it means they can't surpass you.

tehwebdev3• 12 years ago

I really appreciate your insights. It does help a great deal to relieve my stress right now.

abdulmateenh• 12 years ago

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

robbiea• 12 years ago

To be honest, this is great news for you. All this means is that you are on to something. Think about it. You have another company who has a million dollar investment, and the people behind the money must be OK with the path they are taking in your niche industry.

Yes, it's not right to steal stuff, but I would take this as a compliment. Forget about them, and focus on you. If you're lucky enough, they will copy your features again.

jesusmichael• 12 years ago

Call the CEO of the other company... Tell him that you can save him 5+ years of development if he buys you. If you can't beat them join them...

joeevans1000• 12 years ago

The negative review route could actually lead to legal troubles, if you don't represent yourself truthfully. But that's not a problem as it seems you won't go that route, anyway, based on the comments here and your reaction to them.

It is a good idea to take the high road, as everyone's suggesting. But they are in fact a competitor, so go ahead and compete. I liked the suggestion of making a deal with the CEO, lol, if you could stomach working for them. Other than that, I wonder if you could just call them up and discuss all this with them. Don't do it if you think you'll be angry. Maybe they'd be shamed into toning down their copying a bit.

thesingularity• 12 years ago

A good question to ask yourself (and this depends on what your startup does) at this time would be whether you should be raising money too.

I personally do not believe that a funded company can compete with you on the features and domain expertise that you have built over the last 5 years. Where they could beat you is in spending money to get to the market first. The fact that there was funding means that someone believes that the idea is large enough to risk millions and there may be a first to market advantage.

(I know you were here first 5 years back, but it is possible that you have not reached out to your entire market yet)

lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

To echo everyone else's comments:

1. Keep focusing on delivering - product, customer service, scalability.

2. You can't hire a full time employee - but can you semi automate enough of things like customer support to chisel out time for a VA? See patio11 on how he hired a VA to handle much of bingo card creator (somewhere on kalzumeus.com)

3. Go find some of that funding - today. Use your real account and ask HN how to raise finance, term sheets etc. Get on Angellist now. It will take months but putting even 1/2m behind you will make the competition sweat - you have five years experience and funding. you should be a slam dunk.

4. Find something else - walk the dog, raise children, exercise. get out of the house. look up at the sky. We are a very small blue dot.

take care and good luck !

pallavkaushish• 12 years ago

If they are going after your features, you should go after their customers. You're the one leading the group right now and considering they are copy cats, you'll always be ahead of them in the game.

Try to contact their customers through twitter, their Facebook fan page, advertising and whatever you can think of. I'll leave it up to your creativity on how you can persuade them to your product but if you can do that you can bust the other company.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

I could be extremely aggressive about this and pose as a user of theirs and write negative reviews online.

You could. Of course, publishing false representations about someone else's business interests with the intent or effect of causing harm to that business is commercial libel, and is illegal.

draker• 12 years ago

It's time for some strategy.

If you haven't done so already you need to write a vision and mission for your company (or if you haven't revised these in the past ~3 months).

I am not talking about just something to post on a website but what you truly believe and want to achieve.

While I would caution you not to read too deep into quantifying (ie: don't write we will have X customers or do X revenue) this article is a good start to understand a "true mission".

http://www.fastcompany.com/1400930/how-write-mission-stateme...

A quick article on vision: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Whats_the_Big_Idea.php

Once you write these two statements, assess your current business against them. Are you fulfilling what you have set out to do? Even if you answer yes and especially if you answer no; what needs to change to align the business with the mission, what aspects can you improve?

Is the business in a position to steadily grow towards achieving your vision? What would you like the business to ultimately become? Define milestones that you can use to guide the business forward.

As you are thinking through these statements it is also good to craft a list or statement of your ideal customer(s). Especially when facing competitors you need to know the customers you want.

This article by Jason Fried gives good insight on why knowing the customer you want is very valuable.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/201206/jason-fried/huge-accounts...

Now that you have the backbone of your strategy it is time to define goals. Goals should be two parts: hazy and clear. Why do you want a hazy goal? Because things change and you should not allow yourself to be so set on achieving a clear goal of "500 new customers in 2014" that you compromise the what makes you great. Rather, you should set your goal as "Increase the number of customers in 2014 (by 500 -target, not focus-) while maintaining and exceeding the level of service we provide." I'll admit that sounds like the BS mission statements in the FastCo article, but your well defined mission and vision will guide you in creating these actionable goals.

This may be better articulated by qualitative with a quantitative measure, but I'm sticking with hazy because it gives your mind more freedom to explore possible goals.

The vision, mission and customer statements and your list of goals provide what would be comparable to a requirements specification. It is now your job to use these requirements to identify the steps you need to take to achieve them (similar to system design and writing pseudocode), develop possible solutions for these steps, implement, test and refine.

jf22• 12 years ago

Wow...

What are we at a Startup Weekend?

mindcrime• 12 years ago

The key point to all of this, to me, is understanding the idea that "You can't be everything to everybody". So you have competitors, and they're even "stealing" your features... fine. They have (implicitly or explicitly) a value discipline of some sort... figure out what the value discipline of your competitors is, and then figure out what you want your value discipline to be. Once you have that, you know how you're going to compete in the market... by having the lowest price, by having the best product, or by having better "customer intimacy".

This is all explained very well in The Discipline of Market Leaders.[1]

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Discipline-Market-Leaders-Customer...

notduncansmith2• 12 years ago

If you want to hear some really wise words on mission statements from Jeff Lawson (founder/CEO of Twilio), along with a few entertaining stories, check out this episode of the ZURB Soapbox podcast: http://zurb.com/soapbox/events/39/Jeff-Lawson-ZURBsoapbox

maswewe• 12 years ago

Sorry but I'm a big fans of Tony Stark, so everytime anything stole from me. I always said :

"You can take away my house, All my tricks and toys One thing you can't take away... I am Iron Man."

AndyBaker• 12 years ago

This is moving move towards a distraction and something you probably shouldn't do. However it's hilarious when you pull it off, so...

Cloak their IP and a 10 mile radius. Show them a new homepage saying you've got fabulous new features in the works. Think up a series of completely useless features that would drive people away, but frame them as plausible. Back it up with facts and figures from "in-depth" user studies you've done.

Then watch them try and beat you to develop the features.

It worked for me in the past.

lauradhamilton• 12 years ago

Ha. A 10-mile radius could be an entire city.

notduncansmith2• 12 years ago

While it looks like you recognize the irrationality of posting bogus reviews for your competitor's product, buying some Adwords for "[their product name] reviews" and "[their product name] alternative" is worth looking into. Of course check out the search trends and the PPC numbers to see if it makes sense, but it just might. If they're on Twitter, get a few tweets sponsored targeting their followers. A bit underhanded, but totally legit, and not an uncommon practice (and will help satisfy your thirst for revenge). Anywhere else you can find their customers, make sure you're there, highlighting what makes you the clearly better alternative. If your product truly is more valuable then you're not stealing their customers, you're rescuing them.

Ask HN: Bigger startup is stealing my features, what do i do?

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