Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?

http://steveblank.com/2009/12/07/someone-stole-my-startup-idea-%E2%80%93-part-2-they-raised-money-with-my-slides/

by nathanh • 17 years ago

188 35 17 years ago

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.

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

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! :)

csbutler• 17 years ago

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.

thehigherlife2• 17 years ago

not trying to be rude at all, but there is a difference between 'steel' and 'steal', and i believe you're looking for 'steal'

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

it may have been a subtle joke - considering the post uses spelling tests as an example ;)

julio_the_squid2• 17 years ago

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.

clistctrl• 17 years ago

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.

davidw• 17 years ago

I worked a bit on Lyris's email thing (they were one of the few people hiring Tcl people the last time I was in the area). The GUI was a bit wonky, but it was pretty good at sending lots of email fast; and they were actually very good about not using it for evil.

eli• 17 years ago

The email piece may work pretty well, but the user interface is terrible and the API is worse.

fnid• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

sireat• 17 years ago

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).

rbanffy• 17 years ago

I think Bob Cringely had something that touched companies that got funding that way.

http://www.cringely.com/2009/12/three-simple-rules-for-steal...

ajross• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

diN0bot• 17 years ago

maybe slide duplication is the easiest to discover and verify.

sound advice regardless! thanks for the uplifting post. fear mongering is crummy. i'm glad to have found a source that is both entertaining, useful and upbeat (telling it like it is!).

kevinholesh• 17 years ago

"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.

roundsquare2• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

roundsquare2• 17 years ago

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).

alexandros• 17 years ago

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

staunch• 17 years ago

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

enjo• 17 years ago

More than that: Their competitor provided a direct comparison for their product. Selling a unique product is difficult, the customer really has nothing to compare with. That comparison process, as behavioral economics teaches us, is vital to decision making.

The entrance of a lesser competitor undoubtedly benefited them greatly. Leaving that hard copy of his presentation may have been the best thing he could have possibly done for that business.

earlyresort• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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

Well said, sir.

Sukotto• 17 years ago

"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• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

Reminds me of this post from 37signals a while back. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1561-why-you-shouldnt-copy-us...

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

pg• 17 years ago

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.)

rjurney2• 17 years ago

Would you say that since no other program actually competes with yours - you get your pick of the best applicants - YC probably benefits the more clones there are?

julio_the_squid2• 17 years ago

Indeed, I've noticed in the niche we're in, several sites have copied the wording on our advertising sign up page. Of course, it's complemented by strong similarities to our layout and functionality, but there's something that seems more blatant about duplicating prose.

illumen• 17 years ago

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,

pronoiac• 17 years ago

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

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

Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?

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