Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#1

Post by pshin45 » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:23 PM UTC

I won't name names, but a YC alum runs a company that is in direct competition with a company in 500 Startups' latest batch.

500 Startups just had their Demo Day this past Wednesday, and the non-500 competitor managed to "sneak in" to the Demo Day to (allegedly) "snipe" their competitor's pitch and their competitor's interested investors.

The competitor then bought ads online for anything related to 500 Startups, to leverage the increased press surrounding Demo Day and the latest 500 Startups batch of companies.

What do you all think? Is this a "dirty" tactic or does it qualify as an aggressive but clever "hack"?

P.S. Reminds me of this recent story on Uber ("Uber rival accuses car service of dirty tactics") that was on the front page of HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7115177

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#2

Post by mathattack » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

My guess is this will get killed. The owners of the site don't want it to devolve into complaints for or against existing companies when there are other forums to do that. (If it were allowed, that's all people would talk about, and it's not a customer service or investor relations site)

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#3

Post by bdfh42 » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:44 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #2

My guess is this will get killed. The owners of the site don't want it to devolve into complaints for or against existing companies when there are other forums to do that. (If it were allowed, that's all people would talk about, and it's not a customer service or investor relations site)

No - it will only get killed is someone identifies or guesses the YC company or founder.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#4

Post by kohanz » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:44 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #2

My guess is this will get killed. The owners of the site don't want it to devolve into complaints for or against existing companies when there are other forums to do that. (If it were allowed, that's all people would talk about, and it's not a customer service or investor relations site)

Perhaps the recommended action is to write a blog post, perhaps with some more substantive evidence, and then to link to it.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#5

Post by jsonne » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:50 PM UTC

Unless they were lying about their competitors or spreading malicious rumors I would say this is fine. Welcome to business, people are going to claw their way to the top with whatever legal means they can. I would think that, if anything, 500 startups should do more diligence on the people attending their pitch day to prevent this from happening.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#6

Post by mikeryan » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:52 PM UTC

Lets boil this down. The only thing this competitor did was;

The competitor then bought ads online for anything related to 500 Startups, to leverage the increased press surrounding Demo Day and the latest 500 Startups batch of companies.

This is marketing 101. Go where the action is. I find nothing dirty or underhanded about this and its a far cry from what Uber was doing which was directly impacting their competitors.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#7

Post by pfraze » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:55 PM UTC

bdfh42 wrote: post #3

mathattack wrote: post #2

My guess is this will get killed. The owners of the site don't want it to devolve into complaints for or against existing companies when there are other forums to do that. (If it were allowed, that's all people would talk about, and it's not a customer service or investor relations site)

No - it will only get killed is someone identifies or guesses the YC company or founder.

Sorry, I accidentally downvoted you

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#8

Post by pbreit » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 6:58 PM UTC

Doesn't sound too dirty and not that similar to the Uber matter. By "sneak in" you mean "got invited"? And advertising against "500 Startups" doesn't sound very effective.

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#9

Post by Fasebook » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 7:02 PM UTC

Will he make more money? Lets see what happens..

Re: Ask HN: Founder's tactics crossing the line?

#10

Post by aspir » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

I'd consider it extremely underhanded, but it's definitely legal. Actually, you should be thankful that you saw this now -- you know what your competitor's values are, and what they may do in the future. I've been at a few startups across a few industries. In some, the competitors didn't care about each other, and everyone played by themselves. In others, we saw tactics similar to what OP describes.

You now know which bucket you're in. Plan accordingly. Don't put on your tinfoil hat, but keep this in mind going forward.

I'd also recommend bringing this to 500startups. I wouldn't consider them at fault here, but they should know that this happened to one of their companies. They should see if there's anything they could do in the future to curtail this. "Demo day" startups are at the most vulnerable point of their lifecycle, and something like this adds unnecessary complication.