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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?

#91

Post by jacquesm »

ewe wrote: post #82
nico wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did miss it, thank you You can still apply multiple times after getting rejected. There’s plenty of stories of companies/founders that only got into YC after several rejections To be honest, if I were in their situation I wouldn’t apply again, but it could be a good move regardless

I'm not sure at this point I want to apply and talk about our company's vision and mission.

Obviously... that would make a whole pile of assumptions and my put you in an even more difficult spot.

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

#92

Post by jacquesm »

sshine wrote: post #90
jacquesm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very fair: YC bills itself as 'female founder friendly', if it turns out that you can't safely apply without your data leaking through to would be competitors that would be a serious problem. Note that there is zero proof for such a scenario but it is kind of odd that the OP applied there and that a YC backed company is now copying their business. At a minimum you'd expect YC to state very clearly that such a th…

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.

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

#93

Post by jacquesm »

dtornabene wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC isn't responsible for the actions of the founders of every start-up that they fund. Even worse: after funding them they have very limited ability to influence the companies they funded, after all, YC has a small minority stake and founders could just ignore them. Obviously YC can cut them off from further capital and blackball them but that may not be sufficient.

on the contrary! They are indeed very much responsible, if only in part, for the actions of the people they are giving money and sharing connections with! Pretty sure there's an entire corner of criminal law and civil code covering exactly those responsibilities! And yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff to make sure that these things don't happen, or at the very very least publicly demonstrate that they will not tole…

As a seed investor and VC investor I'm happy to inform you that it very rarely happens that seed investors or VCs have a controlling interest in the company.

You may have a board seat. And if you don't like what the company is doing your most powerful move is resign from the board. Another option is to force a shareholder vote, but if the founders still hold the majority (as they should, at this phase) that will be overruled.

I'm freshly amazed by the lack of basic corporate law knowledge in the context of HN, this is really something that should be known if you partake of conversations like these.

I agree they should respond appropriately, but depending on what happened that response may not satisfy you.

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

#94

Post by jacquesm »

ewe wrote: post #86
jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That YC is advertising itself as 'female founder friendly' and to fund a bunch of - presumably, too little data - guys to copy the product of a female applicant that got rejected would be a strong move in the wrong direction. But: since the OP doesn't supply any information at all all you can do is speculate about whether or not that is what happened.

Exactly this. Sorry for not being clear enough.

No problem, I totally get why you didn't want to make your post more specific. It makes good sense at this point.

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

#95

Post by mindcrime »

jacquesm wrote: post #74
mindcrime wrote: post #7

Unless they literally stole your code, or had access to privileged information from your YC application or something, I doubt there is much you can do. It's not illegal to enter the same business as an existing company, or even to make an app that does the exact same thing. Where it starts to get iffy is when you start talking about people literally copying your HTML/CSS or what-not. Is that the case here? If so, cal…

Marketing copy and sales documentation is also copyrighted.

Marketing copy and sales documentation is also copyrighted.

Yes, that's why I said:

Where it starts to get iffy is when you start talking about people literally copying your HTML/CSS or what-not. Is that the case here? If so, call a lawyer.

where "or what-not" is short-hand for the exhaustive list of "things that can be copied" that I had neither the time not the inclination to list out explicitly.

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

#96

Post by dtornabene »

version_five wrote: post #89
dtornabene wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the idea that this forum "makes a point of staying out of YC stuff" is absurd, aside from the money, this site literally advertises for YC companies, on top of many other examples.

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 why I should believe them. Its bizarre and embarrassing that people are giving them a charitable read on this.

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

#97

Post by dtornabene »

jacquesm wrote: post #93
dtornabene wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the contrary! They are indeed very much responsible, if only in part, for the actions of the people they are giving money and sharing connections with! Pretty sure there's an entire corner of criminal law and civil code covering exactly those responsibilities! And yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff to make sure that these things don't happen, or at the very very least publicly demonstrate that they will not tole…

As a seed investor and VC investor I'm happy to inform you that it very rarely happens that seed investors or VCs have a controlling interest in the company. You may have a board seat. And if you don't like what the company is doing your most powerful move is resign from the board. Another option is to force a shareholder vote, but if the founders still hold the majority (as they should, at this phase) that will be o…

I don't care whether you invest, nor do I care about corporate law. Nor, really, is corporate law at the heart of this matter! But, hey, if it shuts down opposition on forum arguments I'm sure thats an easy card to try and pull out. So let me be crystal clear, no one needs to know corporate law to comment on whether or not a YC funded startup is ripping off another startup, a startup that had previously applied to YC and was turned down! The idea that YC is in some way not responsible for the companies which would not even exist if not for the money and connections provided by YC is dishonest in the extreme. You should be embarrassed but I know you won't. In half an hour or less this comment will likely be flagged out of existence and no one will the wiser.

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

#98

Post by jacquesm »

mindcrime wrote: post #95
jacquesm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing copy and sales documentation is also copyrighted.

Marketing copy and sales documentation is also copyrighted. Yes, that's why I said: Where it starts to get iffy is when you start talking about people literally copying your HTML/CSS or what-not. Is that the case here? If so, call a lawyer. where "or what-not" is short-hand for the exhaustive list of "things that can be copied" that I had neither the time not the inclination to list out explicitly.

Np, think of it as an enhancement, not in opposition. Your point was very valid. And it's exactly that kind of stuff that won me a lawsuit (15 lines of fairly unique Javascript exploiting a long lived bug in Explorer and Netscape to deliver streaming video to the browser without a plug-in).

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

#99

Post by gwbas1c »

There's four kinds of intellectual property: Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. Which of those did they violate?

Is your business defensible?

(Remember, APIs generally aren't protected by intellectual property. It's the implementation or patents that protect your product. For example, if copying your API violates your patent, then you have a case.)

It should go without saying that these shouldn't be new concepts to anyone running a startup.

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

#100

Post by gwbas1c »

okwubodu wrote: post #47
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #38

[flagged]

I think it’s fair. When a clone of your product is funded by the same entity that rejected yours, it's only logical to assess the differences that do exist. Had she said “as a first-time founder,” I doubt the victim card argument would be raised.

When startups are fundraising or applying to incubators, there is no expectation of confidentiality.

I don't think it's fair to ewe to speculate on why YC rejected her company. What I will say is that incubators judge many factors into why they accept companies; and merely having a good idea, or good insight into what kind of product will succeed in the marketplace, isn't the only factor.

"Investors talk." It's perfectly reasonable to assume that investors would pass along good ideas that come from entrepreneurs who they don't think can bring them to fruition.

That being said, I do think it is poor form on ewe to play the minority status card. Most startups fail, so playing the victim when the odds are against you, just hurts your credibility.

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