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Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

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Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#101

Post by gwbas1c »

ewe wrote: post #79
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I daresay the copy looks much more appealing than the original. A tale as old as time.

Yeah, we didn't have YC money for a website designer, unfortunately.

> YC money

Last time I looked, YC doesn't invest much in the companies it accepts.

But I want to focus on the overall tone that you've taken in this discussion: You're playing the victim. It's hurting your credibility.

I assume that you applied to other incubators? That you've tried to pitch other venture capitalists and other sources of funding?

Why aren't you getting what you're looking for? Don't assume it's because everyone is sexist! Be honest with yourself!

Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#102

Post by stuartjohnson12 »

ewe wrote: post #79
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I daresay the copy looks much more appealing than the original. A tale as old as time.

Yeah, we didn't have YC money for a website designer, unfortunately.

Honestly, just moving to a webflow template would likely do you a world of good for $100 or so

Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#104

Post by [deleted] »

dtornabene wrote: post #96
version_five wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See some moderator comments here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Reading these its quite obvious that they do, in fact, moderate on behalf of YC companies, they just proclaim that its "less, not more", which is utterly meaningless without examples or explicit rules and given that dang himself or someone he reports to or reports to him literally edited configs for the webserver so that the referrer headers on urls to asahi linux would evade a soft block, I'm kind of at a loss as to…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#105

Post by sshine »

jacquesm wrote: post #92
sshine wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why YC should object to fund a company that executed an idea that others also execute. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is the execution. If you execute well, your company will thrive. If everyone is doing it, maybe not.

Because they applied to YC with that idea. That opens a very large can of worms.

I think it opens a very small can of worms. It is uncontroversial that founders and execution count more than ideas and originality in a VC setting. This is perhaps cynical, but welcome to the competition.

Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#106

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #42
nico wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have tons of funding and lawyers already on retainer, this is horrible advice Legal fees will drain your funds faster than anything else and you will probably not see any benefits from it In fact it might be what makes your company fail (taking away the focus from building your business)

Of course it isn't horrible advice, legal affairs are dealt with by lawyers and courts. If you have a product out there in the market you should go to bat for it. And yes, it might make your company fail. But that goes for a well funded competitor outright copying your product as well.

What are the indicators you're seeing in this story that legal fees would have a real ROI? I think it's good to be skeptical of paying elective legal fees.

Re: Ask HN: YC company copied our product, what can we do?

#107

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #65
danenania wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative would pretty much be an end to startup innovation, since a large company with a team of lawyers could just claim that any new product that threatens them is a copy in some way and destroy the startup with legal bills regardless of whether there's any merit to the claims. Being copied sucks, and I agree that it should be looked down upon culturally, but I think "just execute better" really is the right…

I've had something like this happen with a bunch of guys cloning my software and changing the URL to offer a competing service. I've also had a funded competitor copy our business model and attempt to compete. I sued the first one, the other one we outcompeted in spite of a 30:1 funding discrepancy. Regardless, these things are distractions and some funded bunch of cowboys destroying the market for you when you've sp…

Did anything come of the lawsuit?
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