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Ask HN: Should I trademark prior to Y Combinator?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I trademark prior to Y Combinator?

#41
post #36

I could talk about this forever, but I'll restrain myself. libertymcateer makes some great points. But I wanted to add two things: 1) For most people, when I think about registering a trademark, their concern is getting priority so that other people cannot jump in and use the same mark. Registering a trademark brings a host of benefits, but you don't need to register to get priority over later users. You just need to…

Good intel. Thanks for sharing. I'm already selling my product under the name. I did do a search and nothing turned up so I don't believe anyone has trademarked anything as yet.

Good to hear! In that case, priority over other users is not a concern, at least.

Honestly, given your question, just wait. If you are open to rebranding after joining YC, then I just don't see the reason to spend the money on registering a trademark. As I said, the priority issue seems to be taken care of for you. And while there are other benefits to registering, don't worry about those until you are convinced this is the name you want to use.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Should I trademark prior to Y Combinator?

#42

The idea that startups should wait until after joining an accelerator to do their filings seems a bit mythical to me. Maybe it worked back in the day when founders applied with only an idea (or no idea), but now I'd expect most companies to be pretty well established before entering an accelerator. C corp, restricted stock with vesting schedules, the whole bit. If you're already established with a public product, the…

Well I did recently apply to YC and prior to applying and read through the "How to successfully apply" and watch several video on their YouTube page. They advised against creating legal entity prior to YC because a mistake could be made and they even ask about this on the application. I have not created a legal entity as yet. However, this prompted me to investigate on the trademark matter. I just want to make sure i…

If you managed to get a YC invite with no registered company, then I suppose you could wait on everything (and hats off to you in that case :))

If you end up not getting into YC, though, I'd say go ahead and register the company anyway. You'll need it in order to take angel money or give out stock options.

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