Their VC firm is Lightbank is run by two sleazy people. They are the same people behind Groupon. Their founders are notorious for their sleazy tactics, which are solely aimed at scamming investors out of their money. Never work for a company or get investment from Lightbank.
A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
211–220 of 228 posts
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#212Have you, or anyone representing you company/app, ever approached WhosHere to 'merge' businesses as they claim in their rebuttal blog posting?
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that the "practice of law" is to essentially act as a lawyer. In the United States, every citizen is guaranteed the right to practice law in their own defense. "Practice of law" on someone else's behalf when you are not a lawyer may incur fines, as most jurisdictions try to protect their citizens from being represented by someone who has no idea what they're doing. The line between talking about s…
Yes, in their own defense, but not in the defense of others unless they are licensed to practice. I have heard of a handful of cases (related to immigration law) where persons who offered legal advice were held accountable for providing bad advice online. They did not hold themselves out to be lawyers, but they did hold themselves out to be knowledgeable about immigration law. It's not common for people to be held ac…
It seems that one of the tests is whether the person offering legal advice is being compensated somehow, and another is whether there is some kind of ongoing relationship. (I'm imagining a scenario where someone offered their services as an "immigration consultant" for a fee, for example, and they made promises that they could help you navigate the red tape of immigration.)
Maybe if one posted enough legal advice on a message board like this one, some kind of pattern could be established, and the person could get into some legal trouble.
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#214Ugh, this is crushing. Here's to hoping that someone like Grellas can find time to comment and tell you how to beat these guys. If that result isn't possible, than I ask you to keep your head up, move on, and keep building. Do your part to (soberly and safely) reduce the reputation of the founders and VC's behind this.
In spite of only having one side of the story I'm going to decide to choose my ground and ask this: What if we started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the legal fees to counter-sue this company? The precedence set in a success would be profitable to the builders of the startup community. And I'd sleep better at night.
The Other Side of the Story
https://whoshere.zendesk.com/entries/21514943-the-other-side...
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you find some documents under which circumstances this is a crime? I find that you should not do that for money or in court on wikipedia, but I somehow fail to find that "giving advice" or even "drafting legal documents" can be a crime.
https://www.google.com/search?q=unauthorized+practice+of+law "[A]s the term is generally understood, the practice of the law is the doing and performing services in a court of justice in any matter depending therein through its various stages and in conformity with the adopted rules of procedure. But in a larger sense it includes legal advice and counsel and the preparation of legal instruments and contracts by which…
Has anyone ever been charged under this for posting on a web forum?
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#216Ugh, this is crushing. Here's to hoping that someone like Grellas can find time to comment and tell you how to beat these guys. If that result isn't possible, than I ask you to keep your head up, move on, and keep building. Do your part to (soberly and safely) reduce the reputation of the founders and VC's behind this.
Crushing to whom? https://whoshere.zendesk.com/entries/21514943-the-other-side...
Good question. It appears that I jumped the gun a bit, doesn't it?
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#217Somewhat OT: but is it standard practice for the app developer to review their own app on the App Store (sort of like how a dev would 'seed' their newly built social network/forum I guess..)? OP appears to have done so. Or is it possible to leave reviews under arbitrary names? See http://i.imgur.com/BPypw.png
Ya, I wrote that review myself. I would think it is a pretty common thing individual developers of free applications do.
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what bothered me about the whole post. He never once said how old the other company is. A critical (purposeful?) omission.
He also didn't mention that he tried to sell his app to them 2 years ago. Or that they made him an extremely generous offer this year.
I never tried to sell them the application. I offered to build a Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 application for free. Also, their offer doesn't seem very generous when you consider the extreme likelihood that if they obtained my application, it would never be integrated with their network. Since their offer was a 33% revenue share of that application's revenue, I would never see a dime. Building this was never really only about money anyways. WhosHere has no concept of community within their app. I didn't set out to build an app or a company, I wanted to build a community.
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#219I agree that this is certainly in bad practice, but before everyone goes all crazy hitting the donation pool, are you or aren't you "wealthy" From a PDF they have posted regarding emails from you ( https://whoshere.zendesk.com/entries/21514943-the-other-side... ): "" I was born wealthy; I have an obscene trust fund. I assure you that if required, I will obtain the best legal representation for corporate litigation in…
It was a failed attempt at a bluff. I regret sending that email. I posted on my blog in response if you want to hear the full details.
Re: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network
#220Am I the only one that reads an article like this and has the following thought process? "Man I can't believe those guys!" "Wait you agreed to what?" "I hope you documented that right?" "I'm guessing he didn't document that" "He still hasn't fully engaged a lawyer?!" "Man those guys suck but for the love of Mary why didn't he just get in front of this with a good lawyer." - Who needs a lawyer when you can marshall th…
My thinking was that lawyers cost money, so why not try and resolve it myself. But, as a result of all of this I have learned that not having a lawyer costs more money.