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Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

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Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#11

Post by aspir »

mikeryan wrote: post #6

Lets boil this down. The only thing this competitor did was; The competitor then bought ads online for anything related to 500 Startups, to leverage the increased press surrounding Demo Day and the latest 500 Startups batch of companies. This is marketing 101. Go where the action is. I find nothing dirty or underhanded about this and its a far cry from what Uber was doing which was directly impacting their competitor…

It's definitely underhanded and classless. It would be like a MSFT infiltrating an Apple demo and trying to upstage Tim Cook.

But, at this point, we're arguing values and philosophy, and nothing's going to come of it :)

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#12

Post by jack-r-abbit »

mathattack wrote: post #2

My guess is this will get killed. The owners of the site don't want it to devolve into complaints for or against existing companies when there are other forums to do that. (If it were allowed, that's all people would talk about, and it's not a customer service or investor relations site)

If it had been worded something like "Startup A is an alum of Incubator A and they sneaked into Incubator B's Demo Day in an attempt to snipe Startup B's investors... yada yada yada..." it would be only slightly more vague than it is now. I don't see why naming "YC" and "500 Startups" makes it much different. The actual companies were not named. My guess is this thread lives.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#14

Post by WestCoastJustin »

> "Founder's tactics crossing the line?"

No. Demo days are where you share semi-publicly your product with investors, other startups, and hopefully media. What is to stop an investor, or other startup, from sharing your demo with anyone? This might even be considered good form, for someone to give the YC alum a heads up, that "Hey, XYZ, is going after your market".

In terms of keyword marketing, I think this is a well known and understood tactic. If your idea/startup is so fragile that someone can market a couple keywords and kill your company -- you have much BIGGER things to worry about!

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#15

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Well, one of YC's guidelines is "don't worry about your competitors". This is a guideline for practical rather than moral reasons. Worrying about your competitors wastes your time and energy.

So (dodging the moral and legal questions), this behavior may be counterproductive.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#16

Post by nholland »

aspir wrote: post #10

I'd consider it extremely underhanded, but it's definitely legal. Actually, you should be thankful that you saw this now -- you know what your competitor's values are, and what they may do in the future. I've been at a few startups across a few industries. In some, the competitors didn't care about each other, and everyone played by themselves. In others, we saw tactics similar to what OP describes. You now know whic…

It happened to the 500 company - they didn't do it :) And it wasn't YC... just a YC Alum (they should know better)

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#17

Post by dquail »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #15

Well, one of YC's guidelines is "don't worry about your competitors". This is a guideline for practical rather than moral reasons. Worrying about your competitors wastes your time and energy. So (dodging the moral and legal questions), this behavior may be counterproductive.

I'm a big fan of the "don't worry about your competitor" mantra. But at the same time, it'd be silly not to pay attention and to learn from your competitors failures/successes. Doing so, IMO is quite productive.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#18

Post by nholland »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #14

> "Founder's tactics crossing the line?" No. Demo days are where you share semi-publicly your product with investors, other startups, and hopefully media. What is to stop an investor, or other startup, from sharing your demo with anyone? This might even be considered good form, for someone to give the YC alum a heads up, that "Hey, XYZ, is going after your market". In terms of keyword marketing, I think this is a wel…

eh... doubt it had much impact on anything other than just annoying everyone who spotted it. The companies will shake out as they execute.

The bigger question is the DBA (don't be an asshole) philosophy. If you're a fan of mercenary mantra with no rules of engagement, so be it... but you're a jerk. If you win, you get to be a rich jerk. Otherwise, just a jerk.

I recently met the CEO/Founder of Stripe - he was awesome, crushing it, and talked at length about doing the right thing by his people, the world, etc. He's a rich guy that won by kicking ass - not by screwing with other people.

So if you like to be a jerk, create animosity, and contribute to the general consensus that the Valley is about F'ing with each other... then rock on. Otherwise, why not follow the DBA rule and focus on winning investors and customers the old fashion way - being awesome.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#19

Post by rexreed »

If your biggest competition is an un- or under-funded, not yet widely known or used startup, you've got bigger problems than that startup. I find it amazing that startups will consider other startups their main competition, when the reality is both startups need to focus on the larger untapped market rather than think that each other is stealing each other's non-existent business.

Another way to put it: If the market is really that small that one small startup can take away business from another small startup, then you don't have much of a market at all, and you should find a larger market.

Anyone who goes to such extents to snipe a startup really doesn't understand what it takes to gain market traction.

But it sounds like in this case, one startup wasn't really looking to snipe another startup, but rather capitalize on the press that would (potentially) be generated from that startup's launch. This happens all the time in other industries. Whenever Apple launches a product a myriad of other companies piggy-back on the press Apple generates. It's smart marketing.

It would only be underhanded if the startup was making false or disparaging claims about the other company in public. And that's borderline libel / slander anyways.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#20

Post by maxcan »

rexreed wrote: post #19

If your biggest competition is an un- or under-funded, not yet widely known or used startup, you've got bigger problems than that startup. I find it amazing that startups will consider other startups their main competition, when the reality is both startups need to focus on the larger untapped market rather than think that each other is stealing each other's non-existent business. Another way to put it: If the market…

great answer.
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