Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

smartcar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 637 posts

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#381

Post by avip »

lrem wrote: post #371
ChuckMcM wrote: post #44

That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…

> Also, love them or hate them, having patents helps in situations like these. Does it though? There is no global patent authority. If the ripoff is not for the US market, only a patent for their market will help. Which might be impossible to get in the first place.

Addressing this case, for an Israeli company, infringing a US patent implies death. First, there's no "Israel market", US is the market. Second, there goes any chance of future funding. Last, a company s.a otonomo has one way out - acquisition. Say goodbye to that too.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#382

Post by sgustard »

tomnipotent wrote: post #183
jacquesm wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest participation by Bessemer was a series 'B' as far as I can tell: https://otonomo.io/pr/otonomo-announces-25-million-strategic... And even then, series 'A' requires DD as much (and sometimes more so) as later rounds.

VCs are not banks and are not staffed like banks, and they don't do DD like banks. I've been in the weeds in six VC rounds and through an IPO, you'll be incredibly disappointed what passes for DD for VCs.

VCs love to tout how they reject 99.9% of their pitches. What's the competitive advantage for them to fund an investment with minimal technical review? Wouldn't avoiding the next Theranos be worth it?

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#383

Post by manigandham »

sgustard wrote: post #382
tomnipotent wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs are not banks and are not staffed like banks, and they don't do DD like banks. I've been in the weeds in six VC rounds and through an IPO, you'll be incredibly disappointed what passes for DD for VCs.

VCs love to tout how they reject 99.9% of their pitches. What's the competitive advantage for them to fund an investment with minimal technical review? Wouldn't avoiding the next Theranos be worth it?

No. VC is about numbers, getting into as many deals as possible because a very small number return enough to pay for the fund. 99% of deals are expected to fail. In-depth due diligence costs too and would take away money that could be better spent on just another deal.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#384

Post by tyingq »

joshfraser wrote: post #286

Several years ago, I hired a boutique Silicon Valley law firm to create some terms of service and privacy documents for my company. As part of their long list of questions about how we would use our customers data, they asked for a list of similar companies and competitors. I'd already reviewed all of our competitor's terms to get a sense of what other people were doing. So, when I reviewed the final documents that t…

I imagine law firms could experience something similar when contracting for custom software development.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#385

Post by da_chicken »

jaxn wrote: post #179
Gpetrium wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The reality is that if an idea is really good, the people who came up with it know it better than anyone and that gives them a tremendous advantage in terms of knowing what is important and what isn't. I have to disagree with you emphasizing this point. If someone/entity manages to get your idea or code, they may be able to sell the solution at a fraction of the cost since their R&D was lower than yours. When the en…

I tend to agree with the original comment, particularly for products that are still evolving. We have a competitor who copies our features, but they don't know why we built the feature. The result is they end up copying the wrong stuff or tweaking the feature in a way that completely misses the point. But, I agree with you in that creating a feature isn't an advantage in and of itself. Rather, it is the domain expert…

Apple is the perfect counter example here.

Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player, but the generic term is basically 'iPod'.

Apple wasn't the first company to make a smartphones or touchscreens, but the generic term for a touchscreen smartphone is basically 'iPhone'.

Apple wasn't the first company to make a tablet, but the generic term is basically 'iPad'.

Apple didn't invent high resolution displays for personal devices, but the generic term is basically 'Retina display'.

We can go back in time, too. Apple didn't invent the mouse or a GUI, but lots of people pointed to the Macintosh as inventing them.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#387

Post by jonnybgood »

alexmlamb2 wrote: post #260
jstarfish wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a nation, not a race. Race itself is a social construct. Nice try though!

"Race itself is a social construct." What do people mean by this exactly? I've heard some people make the case that the exact boundaries between ethnic groups can be socially constructed, which makes sense to me (like how one draws a hard line between two groups which have some admixture). But the idea that ethnicities have nothing to do with biology and is a purely social phenomenon sounds like a lay-person's misund…

You’re conflating race with ethnicity. They are not the same. For example, in America the ethnicities of Irish and Italian were not always considered to be part of the race of white.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#388

Post by asveikau »

da_chicken wrote: post #385
jaxn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with the original comment, particularly for products that are still evolving. We have a competitor who copies our features, but they don't know why we built the feature. The result is they end up copying the wrong stuff or tweaking the feature in a way that completely misses the point. But, I agree with you in that creating a feature isn't an advantage in and of itself. Rather, it is the domain expert…

Apple is the perfect counter example here. Apple wasn't the first company to make an MP3 player, but the generic term is basically 'iPod'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a smartphones or touchscreens, but the generic term for a touchscreen smartphone is basically 'iPhone'. Apple wasn't the first company to make a tablet, but the generic term is basically 'iPad'. Apple didn't invent high resolution displays fo…

I feel like some of these examples could be US-centric phenomena. We in the US tend to confuse brand names with product categories, and in other markets the Apple brand doesn't have the same dominance in most of these.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#389

Post by Gibbon1 »

Someone I know worked for a company making ultra sound machines. A US company bought one of their machines and exported it to Japan where it was reverse engineered. And they found out about it. The upshot was both the US company and the Japanese company were enjoined from developing, manufacturing or selling ultra sound equipment for 20 years.

Federal three letter agency's were heavily involved in wielding the stick side of things.

That is the angle OP should pursue.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#390

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #386

Suck it up and stop whining.

Especially considering SmartUSA.com and "Smart Cars" existed before SmartCar.com, and SmartCar.com is actively profiting off a brand and trademark established by someone else. Looks like karma is catching up with them.
Post reply on HN